Americans Becoming More Pessimistic on the Economy

President Obama at all time low on economic job approval

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Jul 21, 2011, 06:04 ET

NEW YORK, July 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Between the negotiations on the debt ceiling and the recent disappointment in the jobs reports, it is perhaps not surprising that President Obama is at his lowest point in Americans' opinions on his handling of the economy. Just one-quarter of Americans (26%) give him positive ratings while three-quarters (74%) give him negative ratings on his handling of the economy. Last month, 27% of U.S. adults gave the President positive ratings while 73% gave him negative marks. When it comes to his handling of the economy, even majorities of Democrats (55%) give President Obama negative ratings.

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These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,183 adults surveyed online between July 11 and 18, 2011 by Harris Interactive.

The economy

Looking at the economy in general, people are turning more pessimistic. In June, one-quarter of Americans (26%) expected the overall economy to improve in the coming year, two in five (41%) thought it would stay the same and one-third (33%) thought it would get worse. This month, while two in five (41%) still think the economy will stay the same, 37% believe it will get worse and 23% think it will get better in the coming year. This is a question that has been asked on and off since spring 2009 and this is the most pessimistic people have been.

And when asked specifically when they think the economy will begin growing again, almost half of Americans (47%) say not for another year or longer, 16% say between 6 and 12 months from now, 8% say within the next six months and only one in ten (11%) believe it has already started growing. In March, one in five (21%) thought the economy had already started growing.

The job market

Hand in hand with pessimism on the overall economy is pessimism on the job market. Two-thirds of Americans (64%) rate the current job market in their region of the country as bad, one in ten (12%) rate it as good and one-quarter (24%) say it is neither good nor bad. In May, three in five U.S. adults said the job market was bad (61%), 16% said it was good and 23% said it was neither good nor bad.

There is also not a lot of hope for the next six months. Just one in five (22%) Americans say they think the job market in their region of the nation will be better over the next six months, over half say it will remain the same (53%) and one-quarter (25%) believe it will get worse. In May, three in ten U.S. adults (30%) thought the job market would get better while one in five (21%) thought it would get worse.

So What?

While expectations on the job market were always on the lower side, Americans had begun feeling better about the overall economy. In February, over one-third of U.S. adults (34%) thought the economy would improve in the coming year while just one-quarter (25%) thought it would get worse. Now things look gloomy yet again. And, this is what is wearing on the American psyche - things change so quickly and the hope that things are improving gets dashed in just a few short months. It is tiring and is one of the reasons that only one-quarter of people say things are going in the right direction in the country. Until there is a steady drum beat of good news that people believe will last, this pessimism will continue.

TABLE 1 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S JOB RATING ON THE ECONOMY - TREND "Now, turning to something different, how would you rate the overall job that President Barack Obama is doing on the economy?" Base: All adults
	2009
	March	April	May	June	Aug	Sept	Nov	Dec
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE (NET)	47	49	46	43	39	40	34	36
Excellent	13	13	10	3	9	7	6	6
Pretty good	34	36	36	34	31	33	27	30
NEGATIVE (NET)	53	51	54	57	61	60	66	64
Only fair	30	27	30	27	25	27	30	30
Poor	23	24	24	30	36	33	37	34


	2010
	Jan	Mar	Apr	May	June	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE (NET)	31	32	33	36	32	32	29	27	31	30
Excellent	5	5	6	6	5	6	5	5	5	5
Pretty good	25	27	27	30	27	26	24	22	26	25
NEGATIVE (NET)	69	68	67	64	68	68	71	73	69	70
Only fair	31	30	31	29	32	29	31	33	30	34
Poor	39	37	36	34	37	39	40	39	39	36


	2011
	Jan	Feb*	Mar	May	June	July
	%	%	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE (NET)	33	33	33	32	27	26
Excellent	7	9	5	7	5	3
Pretty good	26	24	28	26	22	23
NEGATIVE (NET)	67	62	67	68	73	74
Only fair	30	22	29	28	30	33
Poor	37	39	38	40	43	41
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding; *In February "Not at all sure" was offered as a response choice and 4% responded in that way.

TABLE 2 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S JOB RATING ON THE ECONOMY – BY POLITICAL PARTY "Now, turning to something different, how would you rate the overall job that President Barack Obama is doing on the economy?" Base: All adults
	Total	Political Party			Philosophy
	Total	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.	Cons.	Mod.	Lib.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE (NET)	26	5	45	21	8	27	48
Excellent	3	1	5	1	*	2	6
Pretty good	23	4	40	20	8	24	42
NEGATIVE (NET)	74	95	55	79	92	73	52
Only fair	33	24	41	32	20	40	37
Poor	41	71	14	47	72	33	15
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding; * indicates less than .05%

TABLE 3 EXPECTATIONS FOR THE ECONOMY IN THE COMING YEAR - TREND "In the coming year, do you expect the economy to…?" Base: All adults
	2009					2010							2011
	April	May	Aug	Sept	Oct	May	June	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Feb	June	July
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Improve	39	38	46	40	34	38	30	29	28	30	34	29	34	26	23
Stay the same	35	35	32	36	37	34	42	39	40	40	41	45	42	41	41
Get worse	26	27	22	24	29	28	28	32	32	30	25	26	25	33	37
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 4 WHEN ECONOMY WILL GROW AGAIN - TREND "When do you believe the economy will start growing again?" Base: All adults
	2009		2010				2011
	June	Dec	Jan	Mar	April	June	March	July
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Already has started growing	7	13	14	12	17	14	21	11
WITHIN NEXT SIX MONTHS (NET)	12	13	12	11	9	7	7	8
Between now and 3 months from now	4	3	4	4	3	2	2	4
Between 3 and 6 months from now	8	10	8	7	6	5	5	5
Between 6 and 12 months from now	28	21	22	19	17	18	15	16
Not for another year or longer	41	38	39	43	39	43	39	47
Not at all sure	13	15	14	17	18	18	19	17
Note: Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 5 RATING OF CURRENT JOB MARKET - TREND "How would you rate the current job market of your region of the nation?" Base: All adults
	2008		2009
	June	July	Jan	April	June	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
GOOD (NET)	28	30	6	12	9	8	10	10	8	9
Neither good nor bad	18	19	18	20	19	21	22	20	18	19
BAD (NET)	53	51	76	68	72	71	68	70	73	72


	2010										2011
	Jan	Mar.	April	May	June	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	March	May	July
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
GOOD (NET)	10	8	10	12	10	12	10	13	11	13	13	15	13	16	12
Neither good nor bad	20	18	21	20	25	22	21	21	23	24	22	24	22	23	24
BAD (NET)	70	73	70	68	66	66	69	66	66	63	65	61	65	61	64
Note: Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 6 RATING OF CURRENT JOB MARKET IN YOUR REGION – BY REGION "How would you rate the current job market of your region of the nation?" Base: All adults
	Total	Region
	Total	East	Midwest	South	West
	%	%	%	%	%
GOOD (NET)	12	16	10	14	9
Very good	2	1	1	3	*
Somewhat good	11	15	9	11	8
Neither good nor bad	24	21	24	26	23
BAD (NET)	64	63	66	60	69
Somewhat bad	35	32	35	35	36
Very bad	29	32	30	25	33
Note: Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding; * indicates less than .05%

TABLE 7 EXPECTATIONS FOR JOB MARKET IN SIX MONTHS – TREND "How do you think that the job market in your region of the nation will change over the next 6 months?" Base: All adults
	2009				2010						2011
	Jan	April	June	Aug	June	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	May	July
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
BETTER (NET)	15	23	21	28	26	23	21	23	30	25	31	31	32	30	22
Will be much better	1	3	2	2	1	2	2	3	2	2	4	4	2	4	2
Will be somewhat better	14	20	19	26	25	21	19	20	28	23	26	27	30	26	20
Will remain the same	36	42	47	47	53	49	53	53	50	54	51	51	52	49	53
WORSE (NET)	49	36	32	25	21	27	26	24	21	22	18	18	16	21	25
Will be somewhat worse	36	29	24	19	15	22	20	18	15	16	13	13	11	14	17
Will be much worse	14	7	8	6	6	5	6	6	6	6	6	5	6	7	8
Note: Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding

Methodology

This Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between July 11 to 18, 2011 among 2,183 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

The results of this Harris Poll may not be used in advertising, marketing or promotion without the prior written permission of Harris Interactive.

J40488

Q705, 710, 715, 720, 725

The Harris Poll^® #86, July 21, 2011

By Regina A. Corso, SVP, Harris Poll, Public Relations and Youth Research, Harris Interactive

About Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive is one of the world's leading custom market research firms, leveraging research, technology, and business acumen to transform relevant insight into actionable foresight. Known widely for the Harris Poll and for pioneering innovative research methodologies, Harris offers expertise in a wide range of industries including healthcare, technology, public affairs, energy, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, media, retail, restaurant, and consumer package goods. Serving clients in over 215 countries and territories through our North American, European, and Asian offices and a network of independent market research firms, Harris specializes in delivering research solutions that help us – and our clients – stay ahead of what's next. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.

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SOURCE Harris Interactive