6/7/19: American Pride: Another Divide

A great nation, divided and wanting for change as it may be... But just how divided are Americans? Bloomberg chart on a recent Gallup Poll data is quite telling:

The first thing to note is the demographic divide by age. Less than 50 percent of 18-29 year olds in the survey are 'extremely' or 'very' proud of being American. Less than 2/3rds of those of age 30-49 do as well. For older generations, the same number is 80 percent and higher.

The second is the partisan divide by party affiliation: only 50 percent of those identifying with the Democratic Party are 'extremely' or 'very' proud, against ca 95 percent of the Republicans. The Independents clock in under 65 percent.

Overall, Liberals, Democrats and the young are the flash points of relative disenchantment with the American identity, although the proportions of those who do not identify themselves as proud whatsoever and those identifying as proud 'only a little' is below 1/3rd for all three categories.

The numbers suggest less of a disillusionment problem than the weakening of the sentiment. Which does offer a glimpse of hope: repairing American's perceptions of their identity is not an insurmountable task. The good news, American people do appear to be longing for change and hope. The tougher-to-deal-with news is that we seem to lack leadership candidates to take us there...

31/5/19: Generational Gap in Self-reported Satisfaction with Life is at Whooping 28 percentage points

Commonly discussed in the media and amongst economists, generational gap in quality of life and socio-economic environments is also evident in the self-reported satisfaction with life surveys. Here is the recent data from Gallup (link: https://news.gallup.com/poll/246326/six-seven-americans-satisfied-personal-lives.aspx) released back in February 2019:

In 2017, 57% of Americans of all ages were very satisfied and 30% somewhat satisfied with their lives. This remained relatively stable in 2019 poll (56% and 30%, respectively). However, over the same period of time percentage of those in the age group of 18-29 year old reporting their status as "very satisfied" with their lives dropped from 56% to 40%, and for the group of those aged 30-49 years, the corresponding decline was from 58% to 55%. In 2007 through 2011, generational gap was at a maximum point 8 percentage points wide. This rose to 16 percentage points in 2013, before blowing up to a massive 28 percentage point by 2019.