Hope for future generations in US plunges to a record low, new poll finds
The share of Americans who think that younger generations will have better lives than their parents is at its lowest level in nearly three decades, according to a new poll.
The decline in recent years has largely been driven by dwindling optimism among Republicans and right-leaning independents, the results show.
About 42% of American adults believe it is very or somewhat likely that today’s youth will attain a “better living standard, better homes, a better education and so on,” marking an 18-percentage point decrease since 2019 and tying 2011 for the lowest level of optimism on record since pollsters began researching the topic., according to a new Gallup poll.
The poll, conducted in the first half of September, surveyed 812 adults living in all 50 states, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Gallup has been assessing American optimism about future generations since 2008, following a similar poll from The New York Times and CBS News that ran from 1995 to 2003.
Optimism among Republicans has dropped precipitously since 2019, with only one in three Republicans now believing that today’s youth will have better lives than their parents. Among polled Democrats, 53% say the same, according to the poll.
The trend in Republican optimism shifts dramatically depending on who is in the White House, according to the poll. It rose 29 points when Donald Trump became president and dropped 33 points after President Joe Biden was inaugurated.
Democratic optimism for future generations appears less directly connected to who’s leading the country, according to the poll. Optimism among Democrats has not changed since 2020 even though their party reclaimed the White House that year.
In addition to partisan affiliation, optimism also appears tied to income, according to the poll. 52% of Americans in households making less than $40,000 are hopeful about the success of future generations, while only about 40% of high-income groups say the same.
Women were also more likely to have a more pessimistic view, with 71% saying it’s very or somewhat unlikely that today’s youth will have a better future than past generations, while 46% of men said the same, according to the poll.
The poll’s depiction of an increasingly bleak American outlook is reflected in similar polls, including a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, which found nearly three-quarters of Americans believe income inequality will increase in the coming decades.
The souring view of the financial future is not limited to the United States. Large majorities of adults across industrialized countries, including Japan, France and Italy, say they will likely be worse off financially than their parents, according to a 2022 Pew poll.
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