http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-10/americans-in-poll-show-little-confidence-with-plurality-perceiving-decline.html
From Bloomberg – Selzer and Co. conducted a poll in March of 2011. “There seems to be something of a disconnect between what people are feeling and what people are doing,” says J. Ann Selzer.
The gloomy outlook contradicts economic data showing the economy on the mend, and responses that question if the recession truly ended in June 2009.
1 American in 7 has faith a lasting economic recovery has taken hold and a plurality say they are personally worse off than they were two years ago.
Almost half of the respondents believe the U.S. is in a “fragile” rebound and could fall back into recession.
More than a third of the country believes the U.S. never emerged from recession.
Sixty-three percent of Americans say the nation is on the wrong track, which was the lowest in the national mood in the one and a half years the Bloomberg poll has been conducted.
Almost half of poll respondents say they are personally worse off than they were two years ago, when the country was losing 796,000 jobs a month and the economy was shrinking at a 4.9 percent annual rate. The stock market hit its post-financial crisis low two years ago yesterday.
While the 8.9 percent unemployment rate in February is the lowest in 22 months, American workers have been slow to make up lost ground. Only 1.3 million U.S. jobs have been regained of the more than 8.7 million lost since January 2008.
Bloomberg reporters on this story: Mike Dorning; Jonathan D. Salant