Americans Today Remember Better Economy in 1992 Than What They Felt at the Time

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Recent Gallup polls show that Vice President Al Gore benefits very little in his race for the presidency from the positive state of the economy, despite being part of an administration that has presided over the longest economic expansion in America's history. Current political election models that take the nation's economic conditions into account predict that Gore will easily win the presidency. But polls this year have consistently shown the vice president trailing George W. Bush in the voters' presidential choice, suggesting that if the election had been held at any point during the past six months, it is Bush -- not Gore -- who would be president.

The latest Gallup poll suggests that one reason for this paradox is that Americans appear not to remember how badly they rated the economy eight years ago, when Bill Clinton ousted the elder George Bush from the presidency -- largely on the basis of a poor economy. At that time, Americans gave low ratings to both the economy and to the way President Bush handled it, prompting Clinton campaign's slogan, "It's the economy, stupid!" And, on average in 1992, only 12% of Americans rated economic conditions in the country as excellent or good, while 42% said poor (the rest said "fair") -- a net negative rating of 30 percentage points. Today, however, Americans have apparently forgotten their dour views of almost a decade ago, giving a retrospective rating of the 1992 economy that is much more positive: 52% remember it as excellent or good, and only 12% as poor -- for a net positive rating of 40 percentage points.

This major reversal in the rating of the economy is also reflected in the more positive approval rating that former President Bush receives for his handling of the economy while in office. For the year 1992, on average Americans disapproved of Bush on this issue by a margin of 75% to 21% -- a net negative rating of 54 percentage points. But when asked seven years later, last June 1999, how Bush handled the economy while he was president, Americans approved by 58% to 36%, a net positive rating of 22 percentage points. Overall, the differences between 1992 and 1999 represent a 76-point reversal in Bush's approval rating, and a 70-point reversal in the rating of the 1992 economy.

These results show at least one reason why the Gore campaign is having difficulty persuading voters that they need to elect Al Gore in order to maintain the positive economy: the public simply doesn't draw a sharp contrast between economic conditions today and what they were in the period immediately before Gore and the Clinton administration took office.

Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with – 1,023 – national adults, aged 18+, conducted August 11-12, 2000. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Thinking back to 1992, the last year when the elder George Bush was president of the United States, how would you rate economic conditions in this country at that time -- excellent, good, only fair, or poor?

 

	Excellent	Good	Only fair	Poor	No opinion
2000 Aug 11-12	6%	46	32	12	4