Bush Job Approval, Economy, Satisfaction, Confidence in Institutions, Religion and Life

Bush Job Approval

There is no major change in the way Americans are evaluating President George W. Bush's job performance at this time. His approval rating continues to operate in a range between 45% and 50%. The latest reading from Gallup's May 23-26 poll shows Bush's approval at 48% -- the same as Bush's average approval rating across seven polls conducted in April and May. Bush's job approval rating for all of 2004 was also 50%.

The biggest changes in Bush's approval rating since 2003 have come about in relationship to foreign affairs: a jump as the Iraq war began in March 2003, and another jump in late 2003 and early 2004 following the capture of Saddam Hussein. Bush's job approval rating also went up slightly after the Republican convention in New York City last year, after he won the presidency in November, and again (briefly) after the Iraqi elections earlier this year.

Economy

There has been mixed news from the U.S. government on the economic front. The unemployment rate for May was the lowest it has been since 2001, but the rate of job creation was significantly below expectations.

Data from Gallup's mid-May economic survey also show a mixed picture. Americans' global assessments of the U.S. economy are up, but there has been no concomitant increase in positive perceptions of the job market.

Four in 10 Americans (41%) now say economic conditions are excellent or good, up from 31% in early May. Forty-one percent say economic conditions are getting better, while 52% say they are getting worse. This compares with 32% who said "better" and 61% who said "worse" in early May. Other measures of consumer confidence released in recent days, including the Experian/Gallup Personal Credit Index, have also become more positive.

While these ratings are more positive than we have measured since the first month or two of this year, Gallup's economic numbers remain fairly lukewarm in absolute terms. And as I noted, there has been little change in the percentage of Americans who say now is a good time to find a quality job. Almost 6 in 10 (58%) continue to say it is not.

It remains to be seen whether these changes represent the tentative beginning of a sustained upward movement in consumer psychology, or a more short-term agitation. In my opinion, it's significant that there hasn't been any major drop recently in the percentage of Americans who worry about family finances.

Gallup's monthly measures of what Americans consider the most important financial problem facing the nation and the most important financial problem facing their own families show one change worth noting: a decline in spontaneous mentions of the price of gas and/or energy. Concern about gas prices shot up in March and April, but has now dropped back. This change could reflect consumers' simple recognition that gas prices are falling again (albeit slightly). Or it could be that consumers have become used to the higher prices and no longer define them as a major problem.

I find it interesting that one in five Americans say they can't think of a financial problem facing their families. Are these rich people who literally don't have any such problems? To a limited degree, that appears to be the case. Only 15% of Americans with an annual household incomes under $20,000 a year, and 12% of those earning $20,000 to $30,000 a year, can't name a financial problem facing their families, compared with 24% of those earning $100,000 or more. Not a big difference, but the numbers do suggest -- right in line with common sense -- that high-income families aren't as likely to be thinking about financial problems as are families with lower incomes.

Healthcare costs continue to be the most popular response overall when Americans are asked what financial problem is troubling their families most. Among high-income Americans, the most popular responses (among those who mention any problem at all) are retirement and paying for college.

Satisfaction

Despite the uptick in Americans' perceptions of the economy, there has been no parallel increase in overall satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States.

Overall satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States at this time remains relatively low, at 41%. Gallup has asked this satisfaction measure eight times this year and the trend has clearly been down, rather than up. The average level of satisfaction for the first three surveys in January and February was 46%; the average for the last four times in late March, April, and May was 40%.

Gallup first started using this measure in the late 1970s. The all-time low points (when the percentage of Americans satisfied with the way things were going was in the teens) came in 1979, 1981, and 1992. The highest satisfaction reading was 71% in February 1999, when the U.S. Senate was voting on President Bill Clinton's impeachment.

Confidence in Institutions

Gallup released its annual confidence in institutions survey this past week. Gallup analysts have already reviewed the data in other articles, but I think there are three points worth highlighting:

1. Despite controversy about policy in Iraq, the recent publicity regarding prison abuse at the hands of U.S. soldiers, and the Army's difficulties in meeting recruiting targets, there has been no diminution in public confidence in the military. At 74%, the military instills more confidence than any of the other institutions tested.
2. Congress -- the branch of government designed by the Founding Fathers to be closest to the people -- continues to have one of the lowest confidence levels of any institution, measured at 22%. Along these same lines, about half of Americans are say the current level of conflict between the Republican leaders and Democratic leaders in Congress is the worst of their lifetimes.
3. Both newspapers and television news are now at their lowest confidence levels on record.

Religion and the Life Course

Special analysis of thousands of Gallup Poll interviews conducted over the last several years has allowed us to chart responses to a question about the importance of religion among different age groups.

It appears there are four distinctive phases of religion among Americans of different ages. The importance of religion is quite low among Americans who are just entering adulthood, but then rises fairly steadily until age 40. At this point the importance of religion appears to plateau, then climbs slightly among people between the ages of 55 and 64. Then, among Americans in their senior years, the importance of religion jumps again, and continues to rise among Americans aged 85 and older -- the oldest group in our analysis.

One immediate question: Why? What makes Americans more likely to say religion is important in their daily lives as they get older?

The answer to that question is obviously complex and has garnered much theorizing and data analysis in scholarly circles devoted to the study of religion. But here are some possible answers:

1. As people age and get nearer to death, they are more interested in seeking answers to life's mysteries, including the most important of all -- what happens when we die?
   
   
2. Age also tends to bring on more of life's major problems: deaths of friends and loved ones, serious injury or disease, problems with work, etc. Such difficulties may make religion, which purports to help people deal with difficult life issues, more attractive.
   
   
3. The circumstances of people's lives change as they age, and these new circumstances -- such as marriage and children -- may lend themselves more to the positive functions of religion.
   
   
4. There could be a cohort effect. It may simply be that today's older Americans grew up in an environment in which religion was more important than the environment in which today's younger people were raised.