--- title: Why Americans Finally Feel Better About the Economy description: This week, Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index creeped into the positive for the first time since the beginning of the Great Recession. authors: - name: Kara Brandeisky url: https://money.com/author/kara-brandeisky/ at_money_since: 2014 articles: 76 covers: - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/karabrandeisky former_staff: true published: '2014-12-30T19:15:19.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T10:03:44.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - economic confidence index - Jobs - raise - Unemployment - Unemployment rate word_count: 299 canonical: https://money.com/economic-confidence-index/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Smiling George Washington on dollar bill](https://img.money.com/2014/12/141230_inv_feelbettereconomy1.jpg) The recession ended in [June 2009](http://www.nber.org/cycles.html). The unemployment rate peaked in [October 2009](http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000), and since then, it's been almost cut in half. The labor market regained all 8.7 million jobs lost by [June 2014](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/06/06/may-jobs-report/10037173/). But for every week of the past six years, a majority of Americans have told Gallup that economic conditions were poor and/or getting worse. Until now. Gallup's [U.S. Economic Confidence Index](http://www.gallup.com/poll/180377/economic-confidence-index-highest-2008.aspx) is a positive number for the first time since the beginning of the Great Recession. To compute the index, Gallup takes the percentage of Americans who say economic conditions are excellent or good and the percentage who say the economy is getting better, and averages the two numbers. The index could theoretically be as high as +100, if every person polled said economic conditions were good and improving. Today, the index is just +2. But after six years of negative economic confidence indices, any positive number is a milestone. And it's been a great year-end: The unemployment rate [fell to 5.8% in November](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). Both the S&P and the Dow [hit record highs](https://time.com/3644986/stock-market-rebound-continues/). And last month, we finally started to see some [real, broad-based wage growth](http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/pinewsrelease.htm). Americans might have more economic confidence if not for a number of other roadblocks. While the labor market has rebounded, an estimated 41% of job growth is in low-wage industries, which means Americans might not be able to find the high-paying jobs they need. Likewise, while wages are improving for low-wage workers, [middle-class workers haven't gotten much of a raise](https://money.com/earnings-growth-low-wage-workers/). And the long-term employed have struggled to re-enter the workforce—or have just stopped trying. That said, the job market should continue to improve in 2015. And employers are [getting worried about retaining talent](https://money.com/careers-outlook-2015/)—which means top performers may finally be in for a raise, or a higher-paying job somewhere else. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/economic-confidence-index/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Economy", "item": "https://money.com/economy/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Why Americans Finally Feel Better About the Economy" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/economic-confidence-index/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/economic-confidence-index/", "name": "Why Americans Finally Feel Better About the Economy", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2014-12-30T19:15:19.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/economic-confidence-index/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/economic-confidence-index/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:03:44.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Why Americans Finally Feel Better About the Economy", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2014/12/141230_inv_feelbettereconomy1.jpg", "width": 3315, "height": 5061, "caption": "141230_INV_FeelBetterEconomy" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kara Brandeisky", "url": "https://money.com/author/kara-brandeisky/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/kara-brandeisky/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2015/01/150107_bio_author_brandeisky_011.jpg?quality=85&w=190&h=190&crop=1", "email": "kara.brandeisky@moneymail.com", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/karabrandeisky" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2014-12-30T19:15:19.000Z", "description": "This week, Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index creeped into the positive for the first time since the beginning of the Great Recession.", "abstract": "This week, Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index creeped into the positive for the first time since the beginning of the Great Recession.", "@id": "https://money.com/economic-confidence-index/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:03:44.000Z", "wordCount": 299, "keywords": [ "economic confidence index", "Jobs", "raise", "Unemployment", "Unemployment rate" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Political economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy" ] } ] } ] } ```