Rarely seen number of 'miserable' Americans

The figures were released in Gallup’s National Health and Well-Being Index. This is the fifth time in six consecutive quarters that the number of Americans living in extreme poverty has been higher than 4%, a level rarely seen since 2008, according to Newsweek magazine on January 19.

The percentage of Americans living in extreme poverty over the past two years has been higher than during the Great Recession of 2008-2009, according to a survey.

The average rate of people living in misery in 2022 and 2023 in the United States exceeded the level recorded during the Great Recession (2008-2009).

The percentage of Americans who rate their lives as thriving is 52.1% in 2023, higher only than during the Great Recession (50.2%) and the first nine months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (50.2%). From 2015 to 2019, when the US economy grew steadily, and in 2021, when the economy recovered from the pandemic, more than 55% of Americans said they were thriving.

The survey was conducted from November 30 to December 7 of last year on 6,386 adults in the United States. Gallup classified people into three levels: thriving, struggling or miserable, based on how people assessed their current and future lives on a scale of 0-10.

People who rated their current life at 7 or higher and their life in the next 5 years at 8 or higher were classified as thriving. People who scored 4 or lower were classified as miserable. This group often suffered from lack of food and shelter, physical pain, stress, anxiety, sadness, and anger.

Will "Bidenomics" help President Biden win re-election?

Sociology professor Aaron Pallas at Columbia University's School of Education told Newsweek that rates of prosperity and misery often rise or fall in response to economic, political and social events such as pandemics, wars, economic downturns or changes in political regimes.

“It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why Americans have been more pessimistic about their lives in the past year and a half than at any other time in the past 15 years, but it’s concerning. If people vote based on how they feel now, it will probably be harder for incumbents to stay in office,” Pallas predicted.

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