Top 5 Reasons for Angst Among the Wealthy

Wealthy Americans today are worried about the global political and economic climate and the long-term health of the U.S. economy, according to a survey by Insite Security and IBOPE Zogby International.

Insite released a white paper on Wednesday, detailing the results of a survey of some 300 U.S. high-net-worth adults on their post-recession attitudes toward the economy, politics and style of life.

The survey showed that wealthy Americans are a pessimistic lot these days:

• HNWs do not believe the financial crisis will end soon, with 73% calling the global investing environment negative and 24% saying it is poor.
• Investing environment aside, 94% of HNWs are worried about unrest around the world.
• Two-fifths of respondents expressed little or no confidence that the U.S. will right its fiscal ship, and 90% had a negative view of the current global economic climate.
• Fifty-nine percent of HNWs feel less secure since the advent of the Obama administration.
• Thirty-eight percent consider themselves worse off today than they were last year, and nearly as many believe their personal finances will be worse off in a year’s time.

These findings have important implications for industries that service well-off Americans. For their part, HNWs are proactively trying to forestall another financial crisis, according to the white paper.

One-third of respondents said they had personally experienced a direct negative effect on their investments or businesses because of global political unrest, and nearly as many have altered plans for this reason.