Controversies about AIG bonuses, the projected mind-bogging deficit, and President Barack Obama’s budget may be all the rage but a new Gallup Poll finds that optimism about the economy is now at a 20th month high. The big question: when will American consumers start showing this feeling in spending?
Public optimism about the U.S. economy — although still scarce, with only 27% of Americans saying the economy is getting better and 67% saying it is getting worse — is now broader than at any point in Gallup’s 15 months of daily consumer polling.
The 27% “getting better” figure, from March 17-19 Gallup Poll Daily tracking, is up from 15% recorded March 7-9. It is the highest economic optimism reading Gallup has recorded since daily tracking began in January 2008, and, according to Gallup’s monthly economic readings prior to that, the highest since July 2007.
Gallup began to see significant improvement in Americans’ evaluation of the economic direction last week, coinciding with the start of a sustained rebound in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since that index sank to a 12-year low on March 9. With the Dow closing up on six of the last eight trading days, Americans have clearly had a basis for feeling encouraged about the economy.
As reported on gallup.com Thursday, Gallup finds no recent increase in consumers’ self-reported retail spending, or in worker perceptions about hiring conditions at their companies, suggesting any real impact from the improved optimism on the economy is yet to be felt.
The question is whether Americans are getting any inklings about getting better because they sense things may be on the upturn, whether these poll numbers are due mainly to the stock market gains — or whether the numbers are partly due to Obama’s pull-out-all-stops multimedia offensive to sell his budget and his economic recovery ideas. Meanwhile, a Gallup Daily Tracking Poll puts Obama’s approval level at 64 percent, a two point daily gain.
Another poll shows Obama holding steady, according to the now online-only Seattle P.I.’s lively blog. Here’s part of its post:
He is starting to take flak from the “commentocracy” in Washington, D.C., but President Obama holds onto a 67 percent approval rating in the latest Research 2000 nationwide survey.
The poll has Obama down one point, with a one-point uptick to 28 percent in his unfavorable ratings.
In the poll, conducted Tuesday through Thursday, the Republican Party and GOP congressional leaders remain in what former President George H.W. Bush memorably described as “the deep doo-doo.”
The Republican Party, lately beset by internal turmoil, gets a favorable rating of just 27 percent, with 65 percent of those surveyed having an unfavorable opinion of the GOP. The Democratic Party gets a 53 percent thumbs-up, with 39 percent viewing the party unfavorably.
Obama’s approval rating has dipped as low as 59 percent in one recent poll – treated to a joyous headline in the right-wing Drudge Report website.
A CNN “poll of polls”, which averaged seven national surveys, last week gave Obama a 61 percent approval rating, described as “a pretty robust level of support” by CNN polling director Keating Holland.At the same point in their administrations, George W. Bush had a 58 percent approval rating, Bill Clinton was at 53 percent, George H.W. Bush at 56 percent, and Ronald Reagan at 60 percent.
Research2000 is an independent polling firm with a good track record in the 2008 election. It has been taking the public pulse for dailykos.com, a liberal website that generally supports Obama’s policies — but has taken pointed digs at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Read it in its entirety.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.