broken in April<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n\n But averages don\u2019t tell the full story: Middle-income and lower-income Americans\u2019 wages stopped outpacing inflation last year, according to Bank of America.\n <\/p>\n
\n That\u2019s left many Americans in a sour mood about their financial prospects.\n <\/p>\n
\n The public has held a negative view of the economy for five straight years in CNN\u2019s polling. There\u2019s a near-universal sense that the current economic moment is a better time to save than to spend on major purchases: Eighty-eight percent feel that way, including more than 8 in 10 across income brackets.\n <\/p>\n
\n Perceptions of the economy went south shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly because prices rose sharply and the housing market froze. Although inflation has come back down in recent years, job growth has remained surprisingly strong and consumer spending has stayed robust, people haven\u2019t yet adjusted to higher prices. Many feel left out of an unaffordable housing market.\n <\/p>\n
\n Americans from all backgrounds name cost of living as their primary financial concern in an open-ended question.\n <\/p>\n
\n Worries about the costs of food and gas are particularly prominent, with the share specifically naming gas prices rising from 5% a year ago to 23% now.\n <\/p>\n
\n About one-third of Americans say they worry all or most of the time that their income won\u2019t be enough to meet their expenses, with another 42% saying they worry about that at least some of the time.\n <\/p>\n
\n Most say they cannot comfortably afford extras like a nice dinner out or a vacation, and only about a third feel they can comfortably afford an emergency expense of $1,000 or to save money for the future.\n <\/p>\n
\n Three-quarters of Americans say the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests, and less than half now say that most people who want to get ahead can make it if they\u2019re willing to work hard.\n <\/p>\n
\n About half of Americans are dissatisfied with their financial situation, and more see their finances as worsening in the last year rather than improving.\n <\/p>\n
\n And two-thirds of American workers say their wages are not keeping up with those climbing prices. That\u2019s true for majorities across education and income lines, and regardless of whether people work in offices, factories or on outdoor worksites. Even among those workers earning household incomes of $150,000 or more, 57% say their wages aren\u2019t keeping up.\n <\/p>\n
\n About three-quarters of Americans say it\u2019s harder to get ahead now than it was a generation ago, and a similar share say it will be even harder for the next generation.\n <\/p>\n
\n As one person from Indiana who took the survey put it, \u201cWe are making the most money we have ever made, yet we have the least financial freedom we have ever experienced due to the increasing prices.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n METHODOLOGY NOTE:\u00a0 The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from April 30-May 4 among a random national sample of 1,499 US adults drawn from a probability-based panel. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results shown in this chart have a margin of sampling error of up to \u00b12.8 percentage points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s more expensive to exist.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re just staying afloat instead of getting ahead.\u201d \u201cIt should not be like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-424269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}