If the Bloomberg National Poll data highlighted in "Americans in Poll Show Little Confidence With Plurality Perceiving Decline" reflect an economy in the throes of a nearly two-year old recovery, I shudder to think just how bad things are going to be when politics and financial markets force Washington to stop borrowing and spending like a drunken sailor, the Fed no longer has the political support and practical wherewithal to keep creating money out of thin air, and the masses figure out just how badly they've been screwed by those in charge and at the top of the economic food chain.
Only 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 in a Bloomberg National Poll conducted March 4-7 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, compared with 66 percent who said so in December, which was the lowest in the national mood in the one and a half years the Bloomberg poll has been conducted.
The gloomy outlook contradicts economic data showing an economy on the mend, including six quarters of economic growth, a 95 percent rise in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index over the past two years and job growth last month of 192,000. The National Bureau of Economic Research officially dated the end of the recession to June 2009.
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.
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