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October 28, 2019 at 03:20 PM
A year out from the 2020 U.S. presidential election, average Americans and experts disagree on key economic issues that will play out in coming months, according to new polling by Bankrate.
The two groups are at odds on the state of Americans’ finances since the last election and whether the current White House occupant, or any president for that matter, should be credited for the recent record economic expansion.
SSRS conducted a telephone poll on its dual-frame bilingual Omnibus survey platform in early September among 982 English-speaking and 35 Spanish-speaking respondents. SSRS polled eight economic experts by email from Aug. 26 to Sept. 11.
Notwithstanding the recent period of economic expansion, 46% of respondents said their financial situation had stayed about the same since President Donald Trump took office in 2017, and another 21% said their finances were in worse shape.
The polled experts maintained that Americans’ financial situations should have actually improved since the last election, but just 32% of ordinary folks agreed with them.
“As Americans become more focused on the presidential campaign and as a Democratic nominee emerges, our survey results appear to be a mixed bag for President Trump,” Mark Hamrick, Bankrate’s senior economic analyst and member of the expert panel, said in a statement.
“While more individuals say their personal finances are better than worse since his election, voters are pressing for action on health care.”
Fifty-four percent of Republican respondents said their finances had improved over the past three years, 39% said their finances have stayed the same and only 7% said they had gotten worse.
Democrats’ and Independents’ responses were more evenly split. Twenty-one percent of the former and 24% of the latter said their finances had improved, 47% and 50% said their financial situation was the same, and 30% and 23% said their finances were worse off.
