The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer has won two Emmy awards for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq, and The Numbers blog was honored this year as winner of the 2008 Iowa Gallup Award for Excellent Journalism Using Polls.
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Obama, the Economy... and Thin Ice
April 14, 2009 9:34 AM
President Obama may be encouraged enough by some rising measures of consumer confidence to celebrate those improvements in his economic speech today. It’s a place where he’d best tread lightly.
The challenges cut both to measurement and politics. In the former, there are two very different aspects of consumer sentiment – views of current conditions and expectations for the future. Conflating them can be misleading. And in the political equation, there’s little so risky as to be seen as out of touch with the public’s economic pain.
First to confidence: Views of current economic conditions are rooted in reality – at current, a harsh reality of job cuts, stagnant or declining pay, shrunken investments and pinched opportunities. Consumer views of current conditions remain dismal – very near their record low in our 23 years of weekly tracking in the ABC News consumer index.
Expectations are a different matter; hopes for tomorrow are far less anchored by today’s conditions and more apt to include other considerations, including political views. Indeed there’s been a powerful political component to the sharp drop in pessimistic expectations, and the more tentative rise in optimistic ones, since last fall. Obama supporters (Democrats, but also a majority of independents) are far less glum. But the president’s critics (chiefly Republicans) have not joined the party.
Expectations, then, are less a rating of where the economy’s going than of where people, informed by their political predispositions, hope it’ll go. Good hopes can help; if falling pessimism gives way to substantially rising optimism, that can signal the path forward. But it also can be simply the first steps of what remains a very long walk.
Some measures of consumer confidence combine both current sentiment and expectations (ABC’s CCI does not – we report them separately). Given our own expectations data, such indices seem likely to show a rise. Take it for what it is – but no more. Confidence in current conditions, the indication of real recovery, can take years to achieve.
The political equation informs all this. The first President Bush spent 1992 declaring that the recession of those days was over, and technically he was right. But the recovery had not made itself felt on Main Street; that took another two years. All Bush accomplished was to make himself seem out of touch. Adios, re-election.
There’s another cautionary note for Obama. Some polls have suggested the public will be patient with his economic efforts. I’m skeptical. We can ask people what they think now; asking what they will think later is a dicey proposition at best. Reality will be informed by events unforeseen. But the best analogous data we have is for Ronald Reagan, whose approval rating fell by 25 points in 10 months in the recession at the start of his first term.
So much for patience; what’s needed is progress. Tangible results are where Obama will best focus – with an optimism that’s tempered by a mighty effort not to get ahead of the public’s own perceptions.
April 14, 2009 in Economy, President Obama | Permalink | User Comments (11)
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Joeray,
be carefull so you don`t get a heart attack because the economy is getting better and America is coming back very strong but in a gradual way.
America will never fail.
Posted by: Matt | Apr 14, 2009 10:23:13 AM
Americans will show plenty of patience with Obama as long as there is light at the end of the recessionary tunnel and Republicans continue to offer nothing in the form of viable alternatives.
Posted by: matt | Apr 14, 2009 10:53:28 AM
fempharoh:
Langer is being realistic, there is nothing wrong with that... so direct your hostility elsewhere, you look ridiculous.
It has taken us a long time to get where we are today.. so it will not be fixed in only 2 months... any idiot can see that.
So for Obama or anyone to say we are coming out of this recession is crazy.. its going to take years to fully recover.
The market is not the economy... so to look at wall street for hope is asinine....
Main street feels the effects last and the very last to feel effects are the lower and middle class.
I agree with Langer... if Obama starts touting that he fixed everything in jut 2 months, he will look out of touch and no one will have faith in him.... most people, including me already have no faith in the government... so Obama needs to tread lightly.
Posted by: lm | Apr 14, 2009 11:06:19 AM
Obama is failing America
and tell me something new
help save America and attend a tea party near you april 15
Posted by: SarahPalinFan's | Apr 14, 2009 5:39:09 PM
The 30% that is the Republican Party continue to hinder our progress to rise out of the recession -- not only the Party of "NO" in Congress, but the citizens who continually talk down the government and its plans to make the economy REAL. The "Country First" people are hurting the country.
Posted by: Debbieqd | Apr 14, 2009 6:37:13 PM
The current economic conditions may be based on reality but they are also subject to the same political bias as future expectations. The perception of the current conditions is based on how the economy is affecting the respondant and whether they support the current actions of the government (President) or not.
Positive news will help bring us out of this recession just as it did when GHWBush presented a positive front. If GHWBush did anything wrong in speaking about the recession of the early 1990s was claiming the recession over instead of saying that conditions were improving.
We are seeing some positive indicators but I think the recession is far from over.
Posted by: Ohio | Apr 14, 2009 8:00:21 PM
Please do not bring in the Race Card, so typical. This is not about Race, and yes, people have pessimistic expectations. After the bailout our President said that our economy should be improving by the summer, then a couple of weeks ago he said by September and last night he says by 2010 to 2011, so where is that Glimmer of Hope for the people who are struggling NOW. It isn't about the WHY ME syndrome, it's about 1.5 million people without jobs, and how those trillions in bailout were going to help create more jobs. Mr. Obama has the smartest economists, so why haven't they come up with a good plan/program to tackle our biggest problem "Homes",
Obama stated last night and Yes there will be more and more foreclosures...why is that? why is there a program for those under freddie & fannie only? Is this fair? a program for some and not for all, if people can keep their current homes at a lower payment, they will be able to buy, payoff credit cards, remodel and so on..this is what the economy needs the most help in, but Obama refuses to see this, it doesn't phase him. AIG, Freddie & Fannie, wall street are all government is concern about, just like the past administration, so to me there is no change, SIMPLY THE SAME, the middle hard working class gets no BREAKS, NO BAILOUT.
Posted by: working class | Apr 15, 2009 12:51:23 PM
To all of you readers, homeowners who are at risk losing their homes and voted for our current President. His program "Makinghomesaffordable" are only for those who lenders are freddie & fannie, the same one's who took on risky loans, same ones that profit with the boom, and same ones that received $$$$$$ in bailout money. What happens to the rest of us? regardless what you put out there Mr. Obama, banks & investors are not working with homeowners that need to keep there homes, homes for their children. Jobs and Homes needs to be priority # one!!!
this is what keeps the economy flowing.
Mr. Obama you need to come up with a negotiating plan that works both for government & banks, they should be also hold accountable and are NOT!!! they are foreclosing a home to sell it at auction for simply dollars, this is not only down grading, but unhuman, there is no compassion to the struggles of that family who lived there, who did all they could to negotiate new terms only to be rejected. Government needs to step in, do what is right for the people. I've seen nothing but blah, blah, blah. Soon you will have to start naming the many TENT Cities in our nation. Is up to you Obama to go way and beyond your call of duty, Iraq, Iran, N. Corea, Aftgn, could wait, we NEED TO TAKE CARE OF the need of the PEOPLE HERE FIRST!!! the ones that put you in office.
Posted by: mom | Apr 15, 2009 1:46:33 PM
We are protesting against the trillions of dollars in government spending, pork projects and bad economic policies of the Obama administration. We want to make sure congress knows that "Americans DO care about these little pork projects", and we want them to stop wasting our hard earned money and mortgaging our families economic future.
Posted by: Charles Starr | Apr 15, 2009 7:47:54 PM
I agree and what about big business? Small businesses?
Posted by: Adam Carter | Apr 16, 2009 3:19:16 PM
rule No# 1: You can't borrow your way out of Debt.
Rule No# 2: Read rule # 1.
Posted by: Alan Gaudry | Apr 20, 2009 3:03:17 PM
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