Tracking Trump - Direction of the Country for October 13th
Bottom Line: For years, despite generally favorable approval ratings for President Obama, we'd collectively been unhappy with the overall direction of our country. In the early months of the Trump Presidency we'd seen a bit of a shift with a less popular President but a bit more optimistic country generally. At one point earlier, this year we were nearly 20% more optimistic than under the Obama administration but that all changed just over two months ago...
Here's where we stood on Inauguration Day:
Right Direction: 30%
Wrong Track: 59%
Net Negative: -29%
Last week:
Right Direction: 25%
Wrong Track: 63%
Net Negative: -38%
And today:
Right Direction: 27%
Wrong Track: 62%
Net Negative: 35%
Change: -6% since Inauguration Day & +3% from a week ago
We'd naturally expect some type of upward movement off of the collective pessimism of last week which was dominated by the horrific attack in Las Vegas. That being said we're clearly a pretty pessimistic bunch. It's interesting because on one hand the political environment frustrates many of all political stripes. On the other hand, so many aspects of our economy, including the personal economy of most, is the best it's been in many years.
Base unemployment rate is the lowest in 16 years
Real unemployment is the best in ten years
Wage growth is the best in ten years
Labor participation is the best in four years
Corporate profits are at all-time highs
The stock market is at all-time highs amid a record run since last November's election
So, is it our personnel wellbeing or our perception of how we want thing to be that's driving this?
Until next week...