[lbo-talk] Americans really in a funk about their economy

[Doug Henwood]

[In March 1981, when this series began, the unemployment rate was  
7.4% and consumer inflation was 10.5%. Unemployment is now 5.5% and  
inflation is 4.1%.]

ABC NEWS CONSUMER INDEX – 7/13/08
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE AFTER 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Economic Expectations Now
Their Lowest in 27 Years

The day George W. Bush called a news conference intended to shore up  
economic
confidence, a new ABC News survey finds pessimism about the economy’s  
direction its
highest in 27 years of polls.

Seventy-eight percent of Americans now say the economy’s getting  
worse, the most in
polls that first asked the question in March 1981. It was 77 percent  
in May, tying a record
that had stood since fall 1990, in the midst of the 1990-91 recession.