State of the Nation

In the June NBC/WSJ survey, 61% say the country is on the wrong track. 31% say it is headed in the right direction. The following are the Right Direction/Wrong Track findings from the NBC/WSJ, CBS/NYT, and WP/ABC surveys, dating back to the beginning of the Obama administration.

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Confidence in the U.S. economy fell to a -26 on the scale used by Gallup. This is down 10 points from late May, but up 26 points since the low point of -52 in October 2011.

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20% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in America. This is a 6 point drop from the satisfaction level a couple of months ago, but higher than the 11% recorded last summer. Looking back at other Presidential re- election periods, satisfaction was at 48% in 1984, 39% in 1996, and 44% in 2004, at roughly the same time.

63% say they are likely to be better off financially a year from now. This is about what people were saying at this time leading up to the 2004 election.

The expectation of those Americans who are not yet retired is that they will not be able to retire until age 67. This is up from age 60 in 1996 and 64 in 2007. 55% of us think we will not have enough money to live comfortably in retirement. Only 32% had that view ten years ago. 33% of future retirees see Social Security as a major retirement funding source. This is up from 27% who had that view a decade ago.

57% of Americans say they have “little or no” control over their efforts to “build and maintain” their retirements savings in the current environment. This is an improvement from September 2011, when 65% had that view.

Gallup’s job creation index, at +19, is about were it has been for the last few months. This has generally been the high point of the index during Obama’s tenure. When Obama took office the index was at -5. The job creation index for the private sector is currently +23, but for the government it is -3. (This index was started in 2008.) [Gallup]

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 8.2% for the month of May (includes 16 years of age and older). This is a tick up from the 8.1% reported in April. A year ago the rate was 9.0%. Here is how it breaks down by selected subgroups.



While considerable attention is paid to the unemployment rate of those 16- 24 years of age, a far worse problem exists among those 45-64 years of age. While their overall unemployment rate of the latter group was 6% in May, 39% of the almost 3.5 million people had been unemployed for a year or more. [WSJ 6/12]

Gallup reported a seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate of 8.0% for mid-June of this year. This is down from 9.1% in February. It also reported an unadjusted rate of 18.0 % in the number of people unemployed or who are working part-time, but want full-time employment.

Keep in mind that in all of the above, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, there is a group of people who are not counted because they have not been looking for work in the last four weeks. And there is another group, that may be 2.5 times the size of the group described in the sentence above, who are described as marginally attached, and therefore not counted. These are folks who used to work, may work again, but are no longer looking for work.

You might ask why the government does not include this population in the published unemployment rate. WW has tried on a couple of occasions to get mainstream media organizations to use the real unemployment numbers. The reason they give for not using them is that it would complicate the comparisons to the past.

Gallup reports both a seasonally adjusted and an unadjusted number in its report of unemployment. However, it only reports an unadjusted number of those working part-time, but wanting full-time work. So, when compiling the total of the two, Gallup uses the unadjusted numbers.

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Identification of unemployment as the most important problem facing this country today appears to be driven, at least in part, by the levels of unemployment among various groups in the country.

36% of African-Americans list unemployment as the most important problem facing the country. 24% pick the economy. 13.6% of this group are unemployed.

24% of whites and Hispanics list unemployment as the most important problem. 32% of whites and 37% of Hispanics pick the economy. 7.4% of whites and 11% of Hispanics are unemployed. [Gallup]

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66% of American voters think it is “extremely or very” important to fully fund the country’s transportation infrastructure. However, when it comes to actually funding those improvements, 71% say no to new gas taxes; 64% say no to new tolls; and 58% say “no” to replacing the gas tax with a mileage fee. [Time 6/25/12]

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60% of Americans had a “great deal/quite” a lot of confidence in U.S. banks in 1978. By 1992 the confidence level had fallen to 30%, and then by 2004 the confidence level was back up to 53%. Since then the confidence level has dropped 32 points to 21%. [Gallup]

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The New York Times (6/17/12) recently published a chart showing the 2011 compensation of 200 chief executives from large public companies that filed proxies for last year by June 1.

The list was headed by the person receiving the most total compensation, $377,996,537, to the least, $10,870,000. For a variety of reasons, companies are paying increasing amounts of executive compensation in stock and stock options. Cash pay (base salary, cash bonus, perks/other) ranged from $35,000,196 to $386,000. Eight of the executives received cash compensation of less than $1,000,000. Two were working for no cash compensation other than perks.

Stock awards ranged from $376,180,000 to zero. Option awards ranged from $62,668,200 to zero.

Here are the Median and Average values of their compensation.



The following is a picture of the Cumulative Distribution of Total Money Income (salary and investments) earned in 2009 by individuals 15 years of age and older.

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There is a company whose top person received total compensation of $377,000,000 in 2011, while a sales person in one of the company-owned stores was making about $25,000 per year plus benefits. The company has announced it is reviewing how much it pays these folks after the New York Times began inquiring about its compensation program. [NYT 6/24/12]

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U.S. household net worth fell by 35% between 2005 and 2010 bringing the median net worth down to $66,740. [WP 6/24/12]

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Notwithstanding the growing disparity between the wealthy and the non- wealthy in this country, in May, 63% said they believe the country benefits from having a class of rich people. In 1990 it was 62%. Even 52% of Democrats and 59% of Independents hold this view. In fact, 64% of Democrats and Republicans, and 63% of Independents, say they would like to be rich. However, 72% say it “not very or at all” likely they will ever be rich. This is up from 68% who had that view in 2003. [Gallup]

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43% of us believe that the overall state of moral values in the country are poor. This is more than twice the number (20%) who believe the values are excellent or good. 73% believe these values are getting worse.

However, 89% of adults, including 82% of Catholics, find birth control to be morally acceptable.

The number of “pro-choice” Americans is now at 41%, a substantial drop from 1995 when 56% had that view, and even from 2006 when 51% had that position. Those who describe themselves as “pro-life” number 50% , which is up from 33% in 1995 and 41% in 2006. [Gallup]

On the other hand, Pew Research found that 53% of the public (including 51% of men and 55% of women) believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. [2011-12]

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66% of Americans believe that immigration is a good thing for the United States today. 29% take an opposite view. This survey was conducted by Gallup before President Obama ordered the end to deportation of certain people who came to the United States illegally as children.

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According to the Census Bureau, the United States will grow by some 61 million people over the next 18 years, to a total of 373 million. The Hispanic population will grow by 63%, the Asian-American population will grow by 55%, the African-American population will grow by 27%, while the number of whites will grow by only 4%. About 64% of the current population is white. By 2030, that number will be 56%.

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