New Gallup poll reveals depth of Americans' gloom about the future
By: Linley Sanders (Associated Press via PBS News)
The US economy is restructuring itself which has made the supply-side economic theories moot. The new metrics for measuring economic health won't be based on productivity. The new economy will be about resilience and adequate lifestyle. The neoliberal thinkers advocating for artificial intelligence and robotics cannot avoid the loss of productivity as a useful measure of economic performance.
We're beginning to see early signs that the experts are flying blind. Naturally that is unsettling for mere workers and gives rise to a gloomy outlook.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Politics Feb 10, 2026, WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans' hope for their future has fallen to a new low, according to new polling.
In 2025, only about 59% of Americans gave high ratings when asked to evaluate how good their life will be in about five years, the lowest annual measure since Gallup began asking this question almost 20 years ago.
It's a warning about the depth of the gloom that has fallen over the country over the past few years. In the data, Gallup's "current" and "future" lines have tended to move together over time — when Americans are feeling good about the present, they tend to feel optimistic about the future. But the most recent measures show that while current life satisfaction has declined over the last decade, future optimism has dropped even more.
The finding comes from a longstanding Gallup question that asks Americans to rate their current and future lives on a scale from 0 to 10. Those who give themselves an 8 or higher on the question about the future are categorized as optimists.
"While current life is eroding, it's that optimism for the future that has eroded almost twice as much over the course of about that last 10 years or so," said Dan Witters, the research director of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index.
Gallup assesses people who rate their current life at a 7 or higher and their anticipated future at an 8 or higher as "thriving." Fewer than half of Americans, about 48%, are now in that category.
Democrats and Hispanic Americans, in particular, were in a darker mood last year. But even with President Donald Trump back in the White House and his party in control of both houses of Congress, Republicans aren't feeling nearly as good about the future as they were in the last year of Trump's first term.
Democrats' optimism fell significantly
Americans' attitudes toward the future tend to shift when a new political party enters the White House — generally, the party in power grows more optimistic, while the party without control is more down. For instance, Democrats became more positive about the future after Joe Biden won the presidency, while Republicans' outlook soured.
Witters notes that these changes typically happen "by roughly the same amount, same level of magnitude, so they cancel each other out."
That didn't happen in 2025.
Toward the end of Biden's term and the start of Trump's second term, Democrats' optimism fell from 65% to 57%. Republicans grew more hopeful, but not enough to offset Democrats' drop.
"The regime change in the White House almost certainly was a big driving factor in what's happened," Witters said. "And a lot of that was just because the people who identified as Democrats really took it in the chops."
But Republicans are still quite a bit gloomier about the future than they were in the last year of Trump's first term. A January AP-NORC poll found that while the vast majority of Republicans are still behind the president, his work on the economy hasn't lived up to many people's expectations.
Hispanic adults grew more pessimistic
Hispanic adults' optimism for the near future also declined during Trump's first year in office, dropping from 69% to 63%.
That decrease was sharper than among white and Black Americans, something that Witters said could be tied to overall cost concerns, health care worries or alarm about Trump's recent immigration policies.
Last year, a survey by the American Communities Project found that people living in heavily Hispanic areas were feeling less hopeful about their future than in 2024. Trump's favorability fell among Hispanics over the course of 2025, according to AP-NORC polling, which also found that Hispanic adults reported higher levels of economic stress than other groups.
A Pew Research Center poll conducted in October found that the administration's tough immigration enforcement is highly visible in Hispanic communities. About 6 in 10 Latinos said they had seen or heard of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids or arrests in their community in the past six months.
"(Deportations are) something that everybody can see and look at with their own eyes," Witters added. "But if you're Hispanic, I think it's fair to think that that might hit a little closer to home."
This data is a part of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index. The 2025 results are based on data collected over four quarterly measurement periods, totaling 22,125 interviews with U.S. adults who are part of the probability-based Gallup Panel.
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Trump may have finally killed the neoliberal supply-side economic nonsense that has been destroying the country since the 1970s. There is absolutely no way that monetary policy can address inflation caused by tariffs. And monetary policy cannot maintain full employment when technology removes the need for workers.
There is no road map for where the future is headed now. Even the experts among experts haven't a clue what will happen. People want to plan ahead but the future is too fuzzy to allow that. So, naturally that's going to result in a gloomy outlook.
I share in the pessimism, but not because of Trump's first year.
I fear for future generations who have to live in a country where violent criminals are routinely released out into the street and where the mentally ill set up camps in big blue cities. The currency had been badly devalued over the past four years, and we have changed the voters throughout the country. Sanctuary cities and states aren't really a part of the nation anymore and last but not least we have activist judges who make rulings based on ideology.
So, what did happen with the Epstein files? Somehow Donald Trump seems an unlikely poster child for law & order.
Like it or not, the economy is restructuring itself. The Fed can't use interest rates to lower inflation caused by tariffs. The fed can't manipulate the money supply to maintain full employment when technology threatens disruption. Monetary controls won't work in Trump's economy. The supply-side metrics used to monitor the economy are providing mixed guidance now.
Artificial intelligence and robotics will end productivity growth as a measure of economic health. That will put downward pressure on profits as a measure of economic health. Government policy will need to shift away from efficiency and toward jobs programs just keep the economy running. Technology disrupting the labor market will force the government workforce to increase. Otherwise the consumer marketplace will stagnate and the economy will risk shutting down.
Trump's policies are forcing the economy (and government) to shift away from supply-side policies and toward demand-side policies.
I fear for the future of our country under the influence of far right conspiracy wackos. It is a total recpie for chaos.
Well, here is some 'Sunshine' for us all: Embrace the 'brave new world' that is coming. . . or, fall attempting to reinvigorate the 'womb' (and mistakes) of the past as new! Only a cache of fools would squander the time allotted to keep strive with the coming future with selfish interests and dividing the minds and spirit of 'our' collective nation. Yet, here we are facing widespread division, anger, and discontent.