LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new poll released today indicates fewer Americans describe themselves as anxious about their financial situation than they have in the past three years. Decreases in economic anxiety are across demographics and are most significant among Independents and African-Americans according to the latest Marketplace-Edison Research Poll.
Since 2015, Marketplace and Edison Research have used responses to the poll to develop the Economic Anxiety Index®, a unique measure of the American economy. The number, on a scale from 0-100, is calculated from answers to a battery of questions. The Economic Anxiety Index® describes just how stressed out people feel about their personal financial situation. The higher the number, the more economic stress someone is feeling.
The Economic Anxiety Index® mean score across all demographics for the latest poll is 30. The index has reached an all-time low since its inception in 2015 and has been steadily decreasing since the 2016 presidential election.
Additional Key Findings from latest poll:
- More Americans (78 percent) think tech companies and large financial institutions have a good or great deal of influence on the economy – a higher percentage than those who think the President or Congress do (68 percent for each).
- Nearly three-quarters of Americans (74 percent) are worried about the spread of false information on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.
- For the first time, immigration outstripped health care as the economic issue Republicans worry about the most. For Democrats and Independents, it continues to be health care.
- More than half of Americans (54 percent) say that the new tax law has not had an impact on them personally.
Read more about the findings from latest Marketplace-Edison Research poll and the Economic Anxiety Index® at Marketplace.org.
Marketplace-Edison Research Poll Methodology
The Marketplace Edison Research Survey is a national survey of Americans ages 18 years and older. A total of 1,058 respondents were interviewed with 500 interviews conducted by telephone and 558 interviews conducted online. Among the telephone interviews, 244 were conducted via a landline phone and 256 interviews conducted via a cell phone. The average length of the telephone interviews was twenty minutes. The interviews were conducted from September 25th – October 1st 2018.
The data was weighted to match the most recent United States population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau for age, gender, race, income and region of the country.
About Marketplace
Marketplace® is on a mission to raise the economic intelligence of the country. Its core programs – Marketplace®, Marketplace Morning Report® and Marketplace Tech® – are currently broadcast on more than 800 public radio stations nationwide and heard by more than 14 million weekly listeners. Marketplace podcasts including Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly, The Uncertain Hour® and Corner Office can be found at Marketplace.org or on your favorite podcast app. The Marketplace portfolio of programs are produced and distributed by American Public Media®, one of the largest producers and distributors of public radio programming in the world. For more information on Marketplace, visit marketplace.org, follow us on Twitter @marketplace or like us on Facebook. For more information on American Public Media, visit americanpublicmedia.org.
About Edison Research
Since its founding in 1994, Edison Research has conducted over 13,000 research assignments in 50 countries. Edison works with a broad array of commercial clients, governments and NGOs, including AMC Theatres, The Brookings Institute, Disney, The Gates Foundation, Google, the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau, Oracle, Pandora, The Pew Research Center, Samsung, Spotify, SiriusXM Radio, and Univision Communications.
Since 2004, Edison Research has been the sole provider of Election Day data to the National Election Pool, conducting exit polls and collecting precinct vote returns to project and analyze results for every major presidential primary and general election. Edison conducts more than 100,000 interviews in a single day for this project. For the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections, Edison will provide exit polls and will tabulate the national vote across every county in the United States for ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News.
