Nearly half of the respondents to a recent poll said they were not satisfied with their income last year, the results of a survey released by Global Views Monthly magazine showed on Monday.
The survey, conducted between Nov. 30 and Dec. 5, elicited information from a sample of 1,007 people. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The results showed that 42.8 percent of respondents believe that Taiwan's economy will deteriorate in the new year.
Their pessimism was due to a series of factors, including the government's ambiguous policies, confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties and politicians paying only lip service to the economy, it said.
Other concerns highlighted by the respondents were the reluctance of foreign investors to invest in Taiwan and the delayed realization of the three direct links -- postal services, transport and trade -- between Taiwan and China.
Only 29 percent of respondents were optimistic that the economy would improve this year.
The survey also found that 34 percent of those polled said the stand-off between the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was the issue that most needed to be resolved.
Other key issues of concern were economic development, edu-cation, unemployment and cross-Taiwan Strait relations.
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