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Americans’ low economic confidence drops lower: Gallup

Tuesday, 31 May 2022 5:30 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 31 May 2022 5:32 PM ]

This photo shows shoppers in a supermarket in Washington, DC, on May 26, 2022, as Americans brace for increasing prices as inflation continues to soar amid fears of a looming recession. (Photo by AFP)

A new Gallup poll has shown that Americans’ confidence in the economy has plummeted to a new low, hitting likely the lowest confidence since the end of the Great Recession in early 2009.

Gallup’s recent Economic Confidence Index (ECI), which measured -45 in May, was down from -39 in each of the past two months, The Hill reported on Tuesday.

The Gallup index is a summary of Americans’ ratings of current economic conditions and whether the economy is getting better or worse on a theoretical scale of +100 to -100. It takes into account the net of excellent and good versus poor responses

Earlier polls indicated that Americans believed the financial situation was worsening amid rising inflation and mounting fears of another economic recession.

A CBS/YouGov poll also showed about 60 percent of Americans agree that the state of the country is “uneasy,” as well as “worrying” and “frustrating.”

According to a Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey earlier this month, 56 percent of the participants believed that America's financial situation was “getting worse”.

In this regard, Americans of all political affiliations interviewed in a poll conducted by CNN in early May said the US economic conditions were poor.

US inflation rate has hit its highest rate in decades this year, surpassing figures reported in 1982.

The US Commerce Department said in its personal consumption expenditures (PCE) report in late January that the figures reflect price increases in both goods and services, adding that Americans' personal consumption had fallen 0.6 percent in December, even as personal incomes had grown in line with consensus estimates by 0.3 percent that month.

Core inflation, which counts out volatile food and energy prices, had risen 4.9 percent from the year before, slightly above economists’ expectations of a 4.8 percent raise.

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