WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 (UPI) — A new Gallup poll found a significant increase since President Barack Obama took office in the number of Americans who say they are satisfied with their standard of living.
At the beginning of Obama’s presidency, 73 percent of Americans said they were satisfied with their standard of living. By 2015, that figure had risen to 79 percent. So far this year, it is 80 percent, the poll found.
Non-Hispanic black Americans reported the highest gains in the standard of living index during Obama’s presidency, with a 34-point jump between 2008 and 2016 to date, the poll found. Hispanics reported a 31-point jump. Non-Hispanic white Americans reported an index of 47 in 2016 to date, up from 25 points in 2008.
“Standard of living is a chief component of a person’s financial well-being. Though Americans’ views of the U.S. economy are now more negative than positive after having been slightly positive for part of 2014 and 2015, their assessments of their personal standard of living have always been positive and have improved during Obama’s presidency,” Gallup author Art Swift said. “Financial well-being is about more than just income. It also reflects Americans’ ability to manage their money to reduce financial stress. Those with lower incomes who manage their finances effectively could weather storms caused by a global recession.”
The poll, based on telephone interviews conducted Jan. 2 – Dec. 30, 2008 to 2015 and Jan. 2 – July 31, 2016, asked two questions of U.S. adults: Are they satisfied or dissatisfied with their standard of living, and is their standard of living getting better or worse?
The national sample size averaged 350,000 people in 2008-2012, about 175,000 people in 2013-2015 and about 105,000 for the first seven months of 2016. The margin of sampling error for each reported racial/ethnic group (white, black, Hispanic and Asian) was no more than 1 percentage point in most cases, but climbed to 1.6 percentage points for Asians in 2016, Gallup said.
