Economy Has Hurt Americans' Satisfaction With Financial Picture, But Family Life Is Strong: Poll

The majority of Americans say they're satisfied with their future prospects, but their feelings have dimmed since 1998, when the U.S. economy was stronger, according to a recent Gallup poll about well being.

Overall, only 65 percent of people polled said they were satisfied with the future facing them and their families, an 11 percent drop in the number of people who reported feeling positive about future prospects 13 years ago. This echoes a survey from earlier this fall which reported that American pessimism about the future has hit an all-time high.

It's not just the future that is losing its promise. The dismal economy has continued to take its toll on American families this year. A survey from October reported that more than 20 percent of Americans are having a hard time putting food on the table this year. As of December 2011, the unemployment rate was 8.6 percent.

The gloomiest area of life for half of Americans was financial net worth and savings, according to the recent poll. Overall, only 50 percent of those polled said they were satisfied with how much they had in savings and equity. That is a 6 percent decline in number of people satisfied with net worth from 1998. According to data from the Federal Reserve, the overall value of financial assets held by American households decreased by $2.78 trillion in the third quarter of 2011, Bloomberg reported.

One bright spot in the Gallup poll, which looked at satisfaction with different six aspects of life, was family. The vast majority of Americans -- 90 percent -- reported that they are feeling satisfied with family life, according to the poll. That is only a one percent drop from 1998. However, the poll was conducted between Nov. 28 and Dec. 1, 2011, indicating that the findings could reflect a post-Thanksgiving holiday bump. Other research published this fall showed that parents who have faced financial difficulties and depression are more likely to feel disconnected from their children.

The survey compared current satisfaction levels with those reported in 1998, when the unemployment rate was under 5 percent and the poverty level declined to 12.7 percent. The most recent figures from 2010 show that the nation's poverty rate has risen to 15.1 percent.

The latest Gallup poll was based on phone interviews with 1,012 adults, aged of 18 and older, living in the the United States. The poll asked people to rate their satisfaction on six dimensions of life, including future prospects, household income, financial networth, housing, opportunities for success and family life.

Comments

[Siebenstein]

07:53 PM on 12/28/2011

I want the money back Chase has stolen from me---period.

[blueken60]

04:19 PM on 12/28/2011

How much longer do we wait for the "job creators" to "trickle down" some jobs? I watched a program on TV that showed a Manhatten apartment that rented for $35k a night. I repeat, one night $35k. How many jobs does one night in an apartment create? I saw another program that showed a house in Beverly Hills that was 14,000 sq ft, had 15 bedrooms, 24 bathrooms and a guest house! Who needs 15 bed rooms? I'm sure the owner of that house has never seen all 15 bedrooms, and he hasn't used all 24 bathrooms, ever.So, how long do we wait? You could buy a nice car for $35k, brand new. You could put a nice down payment on a house with $35k. So, what creates more jobs, one night in Manhatten or a middle class car or house?

[StopMakingSense2]

03:07 PM on 12/28/2011

Welcome to the rise of conservatism. If your not a plutocrat you don't exist unless you are unborn since they need an ample supply of desperate slaves who will do anything for nothing!

[paultec]

11:43 AM on 12/28/2011

Family life is essential to a society.People point to the declining family in America and I think this is a symptom and maybe a cause of our declining society,they are tied together.Hitler failed,Soviet Union failed,China lives because of kept family ties.

[paultec]

11:33 AM on 12/28/2011

What came first ? A Government or an Economy ?I would think a barter economy came first.

[StopMakingSense2]

03:11 PM on 12/28/2011

Is there a point in there somewhere? This isn't the medieval era. People ditch barter economies the first chance they get!

[structurequity]

07:23 AM on 12/28/2011

Gee wiz guys a poll was needed?

[Fabini]

07:21 AM on 12/28/2011

The prospect? What about the prognosis, likelihood, hope, expectation, anticipation, chance, odds, probability, possibility, promise, potential, outlook, vision, thought, idea, undertaking, view, outlook, perspective, scene, picture, spectacle, and sight?

How does that song go? My future's so ...?
My future's so dull I gotta wear night vision goggles.

[guveqzero]

03:20 AM on 12/28/2011

Things are bad, getting worse. Survival depends on how fast we can get rid of that part of the financial system that serves no purpose. Like, shorting of stocks with unlimited funds, speed trading ahead of us ordinary people, and financial manipulations by false news reports.

[paultec]

11:22 AM on 12/28/2011

You make a very good point.I need you in my new cabinet after I'm elected king.

[Peter Combs]

02:04 AM on 12/28/2011

things are not good, but in the historical context..thay have been alot worse..

WWII, WWI, The Great Depression, and we survived...

[paultec]

11:23 AM on 12/28/2011

so far......

[Peter Combs]

05:16 PM on 12/29/2011

on a scale of 1 to 10....A 10 being WWI, WWII and the great Depression being a 9..We are at about a 2.

[chaz]

12:56 AM on 12/28/2011

Amazing the more people elect Republicans the more hopeless life becomes.

400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

Keep electing teabaggers,r,conservatives and keep getting screwed.

[loveO]

03:22 AM on 12/28/2011

Republicans only control the House, I'm pretty sure they weren't elected last year because the Democrats we're doing so well.

[chaz]

04:12 PM on 12/28/2011

loveO,

Wrong. The Republicans control the house,the Senate because they filerbuster everything from laws to nominations and most importantly they control the MEDIA.

[frank1946]

12:41 AM on 12/28/2011

DEMS are selling America's Soul for DEBT, it is Immoral to sell a Man's Work before he
does it !

Let's borrow $ 0.70 of every Federal $ 1.00 in 2013 ?

Vote Tea Party....................USA needs to be Rescued, ASAP !

[local21]

07:35 AM on 12/28/2011

and the repub/bagger response : Mark-to-Market Accounting, Bush Tax Cuts, 600 billion + military, Corporate Welfare, but cut Social Security.

[mdsman]

09:31 AM on 12/28/2011

And yet, it is this administration that cut 2% of SS funding for an average of $20/week
Take from the seniors to buy votes from the selfish young
disgraceful

[Tom Langley]

11:05 PM on 12/27/2011

What is an "economy" exactly? This is a brand new school of thought brought into being by science that anthropologists have repeatedly debunked as fraud for over tow hundred years but continues to perpetuate itself as a myth. It's like the myth of Zeus, it just won't go away. At it's base, it is this,...there is no "economy", there is no "society" there is only the activities that take place in a specific space of geography, and are governed by a specific set of rules that apply in that specific space. History,(otherwise known as empirical observation), has demonstrated, unequivocally, that it is government and it's eventual succumbing to, or resting of greed, pure and simple, which eventually determines human outcomes. There is no "economy", there is no "market" without government. I know all you MBA's and Economists are going to toss back the garbage they taught you in school, but that's why anthropology wash;t a requirement for a business or econ major. Humanity isn't the issue at stake there, money is. But since the bankers have managed to convert money to the equivalent of society in western industrialized nations, you're never taught just how irrelevant, and unrealistic our western thinking about money, and it's relationship to humanity really is. So, fire away. I stand ready to defend, armed with empirical facts of history, not theory taught by criminals in gulags called business schools.

[cigi]

02:27 AM on 12/28/2011

Tom, faved and fanned. My husband is an Economist and I am a Sociologist/Psychologist and we both agree with you. Economists are really only historians who study trends from the past, which may or not help understand the future of things to come. Our "American society" is at real risk right now because of the greed and avarice of the predatory Capitalist system that our's has become ever since Reagan. Adam Smith would spin in his grave today to listen to pulp pushed by the Wall Streeters and the their mouth pieces in the Lame Stream Media. Currently, our society is leaning greatly towards Fascism and our Government has been co-opted by the Oligarchs. If you study business models, an Oligarchy is definitely more profitable than a "free market" and even more so than a monopoly. My husband has an MBA and believe me, he sees the folly of what Business has done to this country. He also teaches as an adjunct at the graduate level in Marketing and says that most business schools have adopted the Chicago School of Business/Milton Friedman model of business in a society. It is nothing but laisezze faire trash and tripe. Friedman experiemented with Chile's government with his far right agenda and it crashed their retirement and social security system long ago. The greatest measure of any society and her citizens is how well she treats the least among her citizens...mainly the poor, the frail, children and the elderly.

[loveO]

03:34 AM on 12/28/2011

There is an economy without government. The fact that two individuals work together for a common goal is an economy.

Currency doesn't mean economy, economics is a study on how well a group of people work together to keep goods moving among them. They don't need money for that.

If a person mixes labor with natural resources and provides a good or service at a cost lower than the value another person puts on it, and if another person is willing to trade his resources (goods/services etc.) Then that is an economy. You don't need a government or currency.

A modern economy is how well individuals, corporations, and government work together, it's just on a much larger scale.

It is not a myth but an actual subject of scientific study, and I would argue without economy there is no government. Because for a society to even exist there must be an economy, and for a government to even exist there must be communication among people, making trading of resources a certainty.

[Tom Langley]

08:30 PM on 12/28/2011

I would argue differently. I would argue that in the absence of money, what is typically present is community, not economy. Mutual care taking and distribution of wealth based on any number of different social factors whereby people commit to each other their word and bond, but not trade, nor money. The prevailing nonsense taught about first there was trade, then there was money to facilitate trade is not borne out by the facts. There is distribution of necessities, and systems of government develop to define the rules of engagement between members of collectives, but not an exchange of items in a measured equivalency. The entire basis for economic theory is just not supported by anthropological study. There is NO evidence of any equivalency exchange protocol (trade) UNTIL money is developed, and money is NEVER EVER in evidence in the absence of a system government. Even the most primitive forms of life on the planet form rules and systems of governance, but never show any sign of needing money, nor any equalized formal economy. The development of such is precisely what leads us to be able to be inhumane to one-another by providing an impersonalized method of walking away from any individual commitment once the monetary/trade exchange is completed and agreed upon. From that moment forward, the system, while generating material comforts, baubles and trash, denigrates the humanity of it's architects until there is eventually a collapse civilization among them. THAT, is what the anthropological evidence shows, unequivocally.

[Grichde]

10:40 PM on 12/27/2011

Guess I didn't polled. The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama's watch.
The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $15 trillion, heading to $16 trillion. 

It's the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama's four-year term.

Source CBS NEWS.  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20095704-503544.html.

I will admit Bush had two bad wars, and run up a very large debt, that not an excuse for Obama to continue the same policies.

[eternalhealth1]

02:10 AM on 12/28/2011

I agree that it is too much debt. It started in 2008 when they previous administration gave out the bailouts and the two wars. Also the Bush Era Tax exemption for the rich is not helping. They feel they have paid far too much in taxes, yet they use loopholes to calculate their taxes. If you have AMT, you have paid more than a rich person. Don't even look at the poor. $7.25 an hour is not even enough to survive in this world.

[laser focused]

10:09 PM on 12/27/2011

I not satisfied entirely...I have the potential to make more and thats what I intend to do. I won't be caught in the next recession or any recession for that matter. I have a family to think of, kids to raise, a future to think of. remember failure to plan is a plan for failure.

[paultec]

11:46 AM on 12/28/2011

good luck,cause you will need that in spite of planing.You'll see.

[laser focused]

04:21 PM on 12/28/2011

I won't run out of money...but I'm going to need more, yes.

[hmargret]

09:11 PM on 12/27/2011

Ha, Ha, what a BS headline....next headline down says more people on anti-depressants as joblessness rises.

SPIN, folks, this is the spin.

We're in a depression....and they just can't do honesty. But wait, THEY, the bureaucrats aren't in a depression or recession, cause they live off us!