Americans have an increasingly bleak outlook on the future of their country, according to a new poll.
A new Wall Street Journal/NORC survey released Friday found that only 36% of voters said the American dream holds true. The poll marks a continued decrease in optimism from respondents, as 48% had the same answer in 2016 and 53% in 2012 in similar surveys.
A Wall Street Journal poll found last year that 68% said people who work hard were likely to get ahead in this country. This number was roughly cut in half in the data reflected in the survey whose results were published November 24.
Half of the respondents in the Wall Street Journal/NORC survey said life in America is worse than it was 50 years ago, with only 30% saying life had gotten better.
Another half of the respondents agreed that the U.S. economic and political system is “stacked against people like me,” while only 39% disagreed.
According to the survey, believers in the American dream were largely represented by older men. Nealy half of men and those older than age 65 said hard work can get people ahead. Only 28% of women and those under age 50 said the same.
John Lasher, a Donald Trump supporter in Springfield, Missouri, told The Wall Street Journal that he feels the American dream “is past tense.”
“With inflation, you’re working hard just to make ends meet, and then any extra work that you put in is just trying to get so you’re not in the hole,” he said.
Oakley Graham, a stay-at-home dad in Missouri who voted for President Joe Biden, said life is “objectively worse” than 50 years ago.
“We have a nice house in the suburbs, and we have a two-car garage,” Graham told the WSJ, “but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that money was tight.”
Results of the 14th Annual American Values survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and released earlier this month reflected a similar sentiment.
As reported by The Dallas Express, the increasing cost of housing and everyday expenses were identified by 62% of respondents as a critical issue.
Further, 55% of respondents said the U.S. has changed for the worse since 1950, and another 52% said they believe “America’s best days are now behind us.”
Concerningly, 23% of respondents to that poll felt that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”