Are you better off than you were four years ago? According to a new Gallup poll many Americans are answering yes. In a sign of optimism, more Americans are feeling better off than they were five years ago, and better than a year ago.
PRINCETON, NJ -- For the first time in more than five years, slightly more Americans are feeling financially better off, rather than worse off, compared with a year ago, by 38% to 34%. This represents a significant improvement since May of President Barack Obama's first year as president, when the majority -- 54% -- said they were worse off.
Americans' negative sentiment about their personal finances in 2009 was a holdover from 2008, when the majority said they were worse off financially. Gallup first recorded this in May/June of that year, even before the Wall Street financial collapse in September that sent Americans' confidence in the economy and their standard of living perceptions tumbling.
Still, while fairly low on an absolute basis, the 38% of Americans feeling better off today is on par with what Gallup found before the 2004 and 1984 elections, when Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan won their re-election bids. Those figures were 41% in November 2003 and 39% in September 1984, respectively.
There was other good news reported this week that got overlooked in the debate coverage, and the 'Mittmentum' narrative. Housing starts are at a
four-year high, and 27% over the same time period last year. Housing and the construction sector have continued to be a slow drag on the economy since the real estate bubble burst, so signs of life there are very good news indeed and may be influencing people's positive mood about the economy.
Considering the concerted effort the Republicans have made to sabotage the economy, this is quite an achievement.
The information comes less than two weeks before the election, to help drive the narrative, but voters will have been feeling positive before the survey would have been done. Better still it helps blunt what is really Romney's only talking point against President Obama.