While the conventional wisdom is that New Year’s Eve and festivities surrounding the holiday inspire hope for the next 365 days, a new poll from Axios shows that the majority of Americans are fearful for the year ahead and that hopelessness is increasing.
Axios reported last week that a new poll reveals more than half of American adults are “fearful for what the year 2022 holds in store for both the U.S. (51%) and the world (54%).”
The poll was conducted in coordination with Momentive, a company focusing on market research trends. A researcher from Momentive speculated that more Americans now realize that President Biden and the federal government can’t “magically” fix the pandemic:
“The end of last year was a particularly hopeful time,” partly because there was a change in the presidency but also because we’d just been through the first year of COVID and everyone thought things could only get better after 2020, said Laura Wronski, senior manager for research science at Momentive.
“I think after this year we realized it’s not going to magically get better, that we’re going to have to live with COVID for a while.”
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all trended in the same direction, Axios reported:
While Republicans were more pessimistic than Democrats and independents both years, all three groups turned more negative in this year’s survey, with 69% of Republicans, 45% of Democrats and 47% of independents saying they were more fearful than hopeful.
In addition, 51% said they were more fearful than hopeful about what’s in store for the U.S. in 2022, including 66% of Republicans, 41% of Democrats and 46% of independents.
That poll is backed by other data which indicates that Americans are not too optimistic about the year ahead, particularly as it relates to the economy.
According to the Real Clear Politics average, a whopping 62.4% of all Americans say the country is heading in the wrong direction, though it should be noted that number has mostly been above 50% since 2009.
Likewise, Gallup polling found late last month that 29% of Americans — the highest in five years — now say that the economy is the most important issue facing the country. Gallup also found that other factors are contributing to malaise:
As 2021 comes to a close, morale is low in the U.S. COVID-19 continues to rage on, perceptions of the U.S. economy have worsened, Biden’s job approval rating is slumping, and Americans’ overall satisfaction with the direction of the country is low. Six months ago, the public was much more optimistic, but the delta and omicron variants of COVID-19, supply chain problems and rising inflation have dampened spirits. Still, jobless claims are down from their pandemic peak, and the stock market had been performing well until this week.
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