Tracking Trump - Direction of the Country for October 20th:
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 waned a few months back. Here's the latest.
Where we stood on Inauguration Day:
Right Direction: 30%
Wrong Track: 59%
Net: -29%
Last week:
Right Direction: 27%
Wrong Track: 62%
Net: -35%
And today:
Right Direction: 32%
Wrong Track: 59%
Net: -27%
Change: +2% since Inauguration Day & +8% from a week ago
After two months of the most pessimism we'd had in over a year we rebounded significantly over the past week. We're back to being slightly more optimistic under the Trump administration compared to where we were at the end of the Obama years. Last week I cited this as a potential catalyst for positivity moving forward:
Economic growth over 3%
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
It seems like some of that reality is potentially making its way into this conversation after all.
Until next week...