What Voters Really Think About The Economy

Okay. Let's do a little bit of a deep dive into the economy and see what the voters think. If I take a 1 to 10 scale and ask people to rate the economy on the health, only 5% say very strong. 7% are at 9, 14% ... so 18% are at 7.So even though a solid majority's will be 5 and above. In fact, there'll be almost no one, maybe one out of five, who will rate the economy 4 and below. And if I take what's conventionally the top three boxes though, I'm only at 25%, 26%. And if I take the top box, I'm only at 5%.So people think the economy's going well, but they'll not all over there on 10, very strong. They're really on kind of more in a ... If you had an excellent, very good scale, they're more on the very good side.And in fact, would you rate business conditions in the United States today very good? 14. Good? 35. Normal? 35. Bad? 14. So only 14 say bad.Would you say jobs in the United States today are plentiful? 45. Not so plentiful? 41. Hard to get? 14. Again, given the incredibly low unemployment numbers, you would have though that this question would have come out a little stronger.Are you concerned or not concerned that there'll be an economic recession in the next six months? Well, 55% are concerned about a recession. So recession worries are really beginning to take over on the economic front.It's interesting, you know, is this a partisan issue? Are Democratic economists saying one thing versus Republican economists? Is there a desire, both ... Is there a desire on the part of some to, I think, keep a recession drum going, because it takes away from President Trump his main strength?Or is there in fact a recession coming? Or is all this just the normal fear of Wall Street that something's going to go wrong, that consistently plays itself out? We don't know, but I'd say a majority now of the public are concerned about a recession.Do you think that in the next six months, business conditions will be better? 25. Worse? 23. So again, there's a lot of negative sentiment building up.Would you say there'll be more jobs? 28. Fewer jobs? 32. Or the same number of jobs in the next six months? Again, no real positive momentum moving forward.Do you expect your income to increase, decrease, or remain the same in the next six months? Slightly better news here. When you ask people about themselves, they're a little bit more optimistic. 27% say that their pay is going to increase, 16% say decrease, and 57%, remain the same.Have you made any big ticket purchases? About 32% of the public acknowledged that they made big-ticket purchases. What do they view as a big-ticket purchase? Automobile's top of the list, TV sets, refrigerators, washing machines.Do you plan to make any big tickets purchases in the next six months? 71%. The number one thing they plan on buying? Automobile, 37. TV set, 22. Home renovation, pretty good number for the home renovation industry, 22%.Did you take a vacation in the last six months? Majority says yes. Did you travel to the US or a foreign country? 70% within the US, 16% a foreign country. And pretty strong, 14% did both.Are you currently planning to take a vacation in the next six months? 55%, even more. Do you travel to a US or foreign country? Again, numbers that are about the same, 72% in the US.So when you look at it, look at economic numbers, people think the economy's going in the right direction, but not a lot of people say it's very strong.There's a growing cloud about whether or not a recession is coming. They don't really see jobs as overly plentiful. They do think, more likely than not, that they're going to get an increase in pay. And they're doing some pretty good purchases and taking a pretty good number of vacations when you look at it.