Story Highlights
- Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index at +4 last week
- Confidence has dipped slightly this holiday season
- Current conditions at +13, economic outlook component at -6
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans remain slightly optimistic about the state of the economy, with Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index averaging +4 for the week ending Dec. 17. This is statistically similar to the previous reading of +7, though confidence has generally drifted downward since Thanksgiving week, when confidence hit a three-month high of +11.
Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index is the average of two components: how Americans rate current economic conditions and whether they feel the economy is improving or getting worse. The index has a theoretical maximum of +100 if all Americans were to say the economy is doing well and improving, and a theoretical minimum of -100 if all were to say the economy is doing poorly and getting worse.
Last week, 37% of Americans rated current economic conditions as "excellent" or "good," while 23% described economic conditions as "poor." Accordingly, the current conditions component stood at +14 for the week, compared with the previous reading of +17.
Meanwhile, less than half of Americans (45%) said the economy was "getting better," while 51% said it was "getting worse." As a result, the economic outlook component was -6 for the week, compared with the last measure of -3.
In light of the measure's seven-point drop in the past three weeks, Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index is now slightly below where it was this time last year, providing a rare instance of a time in 2017 when the index is underperforming itself vis-à-vis last year (or any other year).
Notably, though, economic confidence has dropped eight points among Democrats over the three-week period spanning Thanksgiving week to last week -- falling from -16 to -24 -- while confidence among Republicans has held firm at +50. Over this period, congressional Republicans have advanced their controversial tax reform legislation, which may be signed into law this week. As Gallup has shown, Democrats widely disapprove of this effort, and this could affect their economic perceptions.
Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 11- Dec. 17, 2017, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of 2,005 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.
Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.
Learn more about how the Gallup U.S. Daily works.
