Nearly half of Americans now say the economy is in poor shape — and most of the rest think it’s heading there fast. The numbers, drawn from multiple recent surveys, paint a picture of public economic anxiety that’s deepening in ways not seen in years.
A Gallup poll conducted April 1–15, 2026, found that 47% of Americans rate current U.S. economic conditions as “poor” — up sharply from 40% in March — while just 21% describe conditions as “excellent” or “good.” The survey, which surveyed 1,001 adults, was conducted against the backdrop of renewed conflict between the U.S., Iran, and Israel, with fighting disrupting Strait of Hormuz shipping lanes and sending oil prices higher. That context matters. It’s hard to separate how people feel about the economy from what they’re paying at the pump.
A Nation Bracing for Worse
How bad is it? Try this: 73% of Americans believe the economy is getting worse. Only 23% think it’s getting better. That gap — fifty percentage points — represents the most pessimistic national outlook since October 2023, according to the same Gallup data.
The gloom isn’t abstract, either. It’s showing up in how people think about their everyday financial decisions. Just 33% of Americans say it’s a good time to find a quality job, while 63% say it’s a bad time. More than half — 53% — now view putting $1,000 into the stock market as a bad idea. That kind of risk aversion, spread across the population, tends to have real downstream consequences.
Still, Gallup isn’t the only one picking this up. A UMass Amherst poll found that 37% of Americans rate the national economy as “poor” — a figure that has doubled since October 2024, when it stood at just 19%. Only 23% rate it “excellent” or “good,” down eight points since July. Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll, didn’t mince words. “According to voters, the overall picture of the economy is bleak and worsening,” he noted.
The Partisan Divide — and Its Limits
But it’s not that simple. Party affiliation still shapes how Americans perceive economic conditions, sometimes dramatically. Pew Research Center data shows that Republicans’ positive ratings of the economy climbed to 44%, while Democrats remain highly negative — contributing to a partisan gap that Pew describes as widening. Even so, Pew found that 74% of U.S. adults overall rate economic conditions as only fair or poor. That’s a majority that cuts across party lines — and it’s hard to dismiss.
CBS News polling tells a similar story. Two-thirds of Americans say the economy is in bad shape, with many struggling to afford holidays and, in some cases, basic needs. Two-thirds. That’s not a fringe sentiment. That’s a country that feels, broadly and with some intensity, like the floor is shifting beneath it.
What the Numbers Really Say
Taken together, these surveys aren’t just measuring public mood — they’re measuring something closer to public trust. Trust in conditions improving. Trust that the job market will hold. Trust that putting money into markets isn’t just throwing it away. Right now, on all three counts, that trust is running thin.
Pessimism at this scale tends to become its own economic force. When people don’t spend, don’t invest, and don’t feel secure enough to take risks, the slowdown they fear can start to materialize around them. Whether that cycle takes hold — or whether conditions shift before it does — may be the defining economic question of the months ahead.
For now, the surveys keep coming in, and they keep saying roughly the same thing: most Americans aren’t just worried. They’re expecting things to get worse. And in economics, expectations have a way of being right.
