A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 41% of American Adults say their personal financial situation has gotten worse in the past six months, almost unchanged from 40% who said the same in October. Just 17% now say their finances have gotten better in the past six months, while 39% say their financial situation has stayed about the same.
Meaning fewer than one-in-five Americans say their financial situation has improved, and are more than twice as likely to say it’s gotten worse.
Economic confidence decreased to 106.7 in this month’s Rasmussen Reports Economic Index, more than four points lower than April.
Yet, at the same time a separate Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey found forty-eight percent (48%) of Likely U.S. Voters think the country is heading in the right direction. That finding was up three points from the previous week.
Forty-six percent (46%) of voters believe the nation is headed down the wrong track, down one point from a week ago. A year ago at this time, 33% said the United States was heading in the right direction, while 62% said it was on the wrong track.
The right track – wrong track findings might seem strangely divorced from the personal finance concerns expressed by voters until you get into the details of how voters view the future.
Among those who say their financial situation has gotten worse in the past six months, 63% expect it to get even worse in the six months ahead. By contrast, among those who say their finances have gotten better the past six months, 71% see their situation getting even better in the next six months.
Politics has clearly influenced perceptions. Republicans (24%) are now more likely than Democrats (16%) or those not affiliated with either major party (12%) to say their financial situation has improved in the past six months. Last October, when Joe Biden was still president, Democrats were significantly more likely to say their personal finances had improved.
Likewise, about twice as many Republicans (49%) as Democrats (23%) or the unaffiliated (29%) now say they expected their finances to get better in the next six months – again substantially reversing the results from October.
Men (23%) are more likely than women (12%) to say their personal financial situation has gotten better in the past six months.
Forty-five percent (45%) of whites, 39% of blacks, 36% of Hispanics and 24% of other minorities say their financial situation has gotten worse in the past six months. Hispanics are most likely to expect an improvement in their situation in the next six months.
Voters 65 and older are most likely to say their financial situation is about the same now as it was six months ago. Adults under 40 – and particularly under-40 men – are most likely to expect financial improvement in the next six months.
Married adults are more positive about their financial situation in comparison to their unmarried peers.
Those with annual incomes above $100,000 a year are most likely to think their personal finances will improve during the next six months.
So, how do we resolve this seeming contradiction – Americans being optimistic about the direction of the country even as they claim their financial situation has gotten worse?
Job growth has been robust, with businesses adding 139,000 jobs in May. The unemployment rate remains low, hovering at 4.2%, and job growth is almost all in the wealth-creating private sector, reversing the growth of unproductive government employment seen during the Biden years. What’s more, inflation stands at a low 2.1%.
Looking at the crosstabs of the polls and economic indicators, such as inflation, employment and wage growth it seems pretty clear that difference in perception is purely political as Democrats see the reduction in government employment and tariffs as cause for alarm, while Republicans see them as causes for optimism.
- Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)
- Consumer confidence index
- Republican party
- big beautiful bill
- inflation
- gas prices
- trade war
- Present situation index
- Expectations index
- stocks
- Wall Street
- Labor market
- unemployment rate
- Right Track index
- Economic growth
