As the midterm elections approach, a new survey says a majority of Americans do not feel their financial situation has improved since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
Only 38% of Americans say their finances have improved since the 2016 election, according to a study released Thursday by finance website Bankrate, while 17% say they have gotten worse, and 45% say they are about the same. This comes as the economy remains the key issue in the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
The U.S. economy has continued to improve since Trump was elected in 2016, but the economic improvements in recent years haven’t benefited everyone, according to Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.
“Ultimately, a rising economic tide lifts many boats. It does not lift all of them,” Hamrick said. “The economy is paying dividends for many Americans, but there are still many people and pockets of the U.S. economy that are hoping for those dividends to appear.”
Opinions about the economy are divided along political lines. Only 29% of Democrats think the economy has gotten better under Trump, while 60% of Republicans believe it has gotten better. Of the Democrats who do believe the economy has gotten better under Trump, only 7% credited the president or Republicans for the improvement.
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.63% plunged 606 points, while the S&P 500 SPX, +1.86% fell 84.59 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +2.95% , meanwhile, entered correction territory for the first time in two years. (A correction is commonly defined as a 10% drop from a recent peak.) All three closed Thursday in positive territory.
Meanwhile, the gap between the rich and everyone else appears to be growing. The average wage for the top earners in the U.S. hit $719,000 per year in 2017, up 3.7% on the year, exceeding their peak of $716,000 per year just before the Great Recession, according to a report released last week by the Economic Policy Institute.
The 1% took home 22% of all income in 2015, and now controls the largest amount of wealth it has since right before the great depression, according to another EPI study released in August.
When inflation is taken into account, middle-class wages have remained stagnant, Divya Sangam, spokeswoman at personal-finance site Value Penguin, wrote in an email. “Given the market growth, consumers would expect to be earning more money, but it’s not really happening,” she said. “Instead, Americans are facing ballooning student-loan debt and credit-card debt.”
Trump has said he is working with Congress to create a tax cut of 10% for America’s middle class. Labor shortages and the impact of tariffs could negatively affect the economy, Hamrick said.
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