New Poll: Americans' Economic Confidence Keeps Growing
Americans’ economic confidence has grown by six points since it was measured in September, according to a recently released poll.
Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index currently is -4, a six-point jump from -10 measured last month and its highest level since the start of the pandemic in the U.S.
The index looks at how Americans evaluate the economy and whether they think it is improving before it takes the average of the two components.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the index was +41 — the highest it had been in two decades, Gallup reported.
In April, the confidence index plummeted to -32 but has been steadily growing ever since.
As of October’s polling, 33 percent rate the economy as excellent or good and 29 percent say it is poor.
Although confidence in the economy is in an improved position right now, 53 percent of poll respondents say it is getting worse and only 42 percent say it is getting better.
There is a correlation between respondents’ confidence in the economy and their political party.
“Republicans are quite positive about the economy, while Democrats are quite negative and independents slightly more negative than positive,” Gallup reported.
“Republican confidence has recovered the most but is still not back to prepandemic levels,” the polling organization added.
“Independents are mostly responsible for the overall increase in confidence in the past month.”
The findings of Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index are consistent with other surveys about the state of the U.S. economy.
The Conference Board, a private research group, saw its index of consumer confidence surge in September after two months of decline, The Wall Street Journal reported.
This could be the result of improvements in the labor market and unemployment rate, as well as coronavirus trends.
“With the rise of Covid cases in the summer, worries about whether we’re headed for another period of shutdown orders may have been weighing on consumers’ views in August,” economist Pooja Sriram told The Wall Street Journal.
“The labor market has seen steady improvement. There’s a long way to go but there’s been a fairly consistent contribution to payrolls each month.”
The results of the Gallup poll were based on telephone interviews conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 15 with a random sample of 1,035 adults and had a margin of sampling error of +/- 4 percentage points.
The Gallup poll also found that President Donald Trump’s approval rating has stayed steady at 43 percent as the 2020 election quickly approaches.
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