Poll Shows Eroding Confidence In U.S. Economy
Earlier today, CNN Money’s Aaron Smith talked about CNN poll results which showed three-quarters of respondents believe the U.S. economy is in bad shape. Smith wrote:
Americans’ opinions on the health of the economy have worsened significantly over the last year, according to the results of a CNN poll released Monday.
Seventy-five percent of participants in a national CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll believe the U.S. economy is in bad shape, compared to just 43% of respondents who shared that view a year ago.
In a poll conducted Aug. 23-24, 43% of those surveyed rated the current economic conditions as “very poor,” while 32% rated it as “somewhat poor.” Only 21% rated the economy as “somewhat good” and a mere 4% said it was “very good.”
The findings are based on 497 interviews and have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Around this time last year, Americans had a significantly less dire view of the economy. A poll taken Aug. 6-8, 2007 found that 17% rated economic conditions as “very poor,” while 26% rated it “somewhat poor.” Furthermore, 45% rated the economy as “somewhat good,” while 11% said it was “very good.”
David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s, told CNN Money that the U.S. economy will get worse before it gets better, particularly when it comes to jobs. Smith noted that so far this year, the economy has lost 463,000 jobs (source: U.S. Department of Labor). From the piece:
“I don’t even think we’ve seen the worse of it,” said Wyss, who doesn’t see any evidence of an imminent upturn. “I think we’ll lose another half million [jobs], and possibly another million.”
Source:
“U.S. view of economy is getting worse – poll”
Aaron Smith
CNN Money, August 25, 2008
August 26th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
This labor market is simply “soft” compared to the 2001 cycle, when 1.6 million jobs were shed - and that was when the labor force was smaller. Further, during the “jobless recovery” phase (2002-2003) a million more jobs were shed - for a total of 2.5 million.
Let’s face it, if the housing market starts to turn around, many goods-specific jobs, like in construction, will cease to drag the labor market down. And the goods-sectors is where most of the job losses are coming from. Service jobs are essentially unchanged.
Thanks! Rebecca
August 27th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Thanks for the comment Rebecca. I cringe every time I hear the lastest government employment data is out. I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot worse than what we’ve seen so far…
August 27th, 2008 at 9:48 am
“if the housing market starts to turn around…”
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That’s a pretty big IF, Rebecca. Do you really think we’ll see this happen anytime soon?