Bloomberg News asked Americans “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” (or in this case, since Barack Obama took office in January 2009) and found that yes, more Americans say they are.
Forty-five percent of those surveyed in a Bloomberg National Poll say they are better off than at the beginning of 2009 compared with 36 percent who say they are worse off. In March, poll respondents split almost evenly on that question after having been decidedly negative since the aftermath of the worst recession in seven decades.
“I’m just tired of the doom and gloom,” says Jim Seeley, 52, a mortgage banker in Traverse City, Michigan, and a poll respondent, in a follow-up interview. “I think it’s looking better. People just need to stay positive.”
The poll, conducted June 15-18, contains more unlikely cheer for the president, with larger numbers of respondents saying their household income is higher than a year ago. While 44 percent say they are treading water, the better off outnumbered the worse off by 28 percent to 22 percent.
So yes, it really is the economy, stupid. And it explains why the President is doing pretty well with voters despite the Village’s best efforts to manufacture a horse race. Things are better than they were in 2009 and American voters understand that. Note that Mitt Romnoid 5000 is attacking by making the argument “Well the recovery would have been even better if…” rather than that Americans are doing worse than they were in 2009.
And yet even that argument is getting roundly thumped for two reasons: One, Romney keeps pushing things that directly got us into this mess: more deregulation, more tax cuts for the wealthy, less accountability of the financial sector. Two, as Krugthulhu and Chris Hayes Now With Charts explain, everything the GOP says we need to do in addition is being done currently in Europe, in particular Ireland, and Ireland is in awful shape.
Krugthulhu, Tunch, POTUS, And The Reagan QuestionPost + Comments (108)