Americans optimistic about 2010

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The bank account is thin, but the future looks pretty good.

That, oddly enough, is the view of many Americans who predict 2010 will be a better year than this one, even if they fear that the US economy and their own financial circumstances won't improve.

A whopping 82 per cent are optimistic about what the new year will bring for their families, according to the latest AP-GfK poll. That sunny outlook seems at odds with other findings.

Nearly two-thirds think their family finances will worsen or stay about the same next year. And fewer than half think the nation's economy will improve in 2010, even though Americans rated 2009 as a huge downer.

The poll found that nearly three-fourths of Americans think 2009 was a bad year for the country, which was rocked by job losses, home foreclosures and economic sickness. Forty-two per cent rated it "very bad."

That's clearly worse than in 2006, the last time a similar poll was taken. The survey that year found that 58 per cent of Americans felt the nation had suffered a bad year, and 39 per cent considered it a good year.

Fewer than half as many people, 16 per cent, said their family had a "very good year" in 2009 as said that in 2006.

Behind the gloominess, however, are more hopeful views that seem to reflect Americans' traditional optimism or, perhaps, wishful thinking.

Three in five Americans said their own family had a good year in 2009.

Some 72 per cent of Americans said they're optimistic about what 2010 will bring for the country. Even more are hopeful about what the year will bring for their families.

But in 2009, every corner of the country saw steep job losses, and the national unemployment rate stands at 10 per cent. Millions of Americans saw their savings or retirement accounts shrink, and many are rethinking how long they will have to work, and where they might find income.

Preliminary FBI figures for the first half of 2009 showed crime falling throughout the nation, with robberies down by 6.5 per cent.

Americans are not optimistic, however, about the nation's two wars. Thirty-one per cent think the situation in Afghanistan will get better, while 67 per cent think it will stay the same or get worse. The results were about the same for Iraq.

Given that President Barack Obama took office in 2009 and Democrats hold solid majorities in Congress, perhaps it's not surprising that Democrats have a brighter view of the current and coming years than do Republicans.

Only 10 per cent of Republicans said 2009 was a good year, compared to about one-third of Democrats and independents. A robust 87 per cent of Democrats are optimistic about what 2010 will bring for the country, compared with 53 per cent of Republicans and 73 per cent of independents.

People's views of their personal circumstances divide along partisan lines, too.

Only one in five Republicans think their family's finances will improve in 2010. Nearly half of Democrats and 40 per cent of independents hold that view.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Dec. 10-14 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media and involved landline and cell phone interviews of 1,001 adults nationwide. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points

- AP