US citizens are more anxious about the economy now than they were right after the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis ended, despite stock market gains, falling unemployment and growth moving toward full health.
Of those polled, 71 percent said that they think the recession has exerted a permanent drag on the economy, according to a survey due to be released yesterday by Rutgers University.
In November 2009, five months after the recession officially ended, the Rutgers researchers found that only 49 percent thought the downturn would have lasting damage, and that was when the unemployment rate was 9.9 percent, compared with 6.2 percent now.
About 42 percent of those surveyed say they have less pay and savings than before the recession. Only 7 percent said they were significantly better off.
The survey results dovetail with estimates that the median household income was US$53,891 in June, according to Sentier Research. That is down from an inflation-adjusted US$56,604 at the start of the recession.
A majority of those surveyed said they feared that job security had all but disappeared and that they would have little choice but to work part-time during retirement.
Researchers at Rutgers’ John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development conducted an online survey of a cross-section of 1,153 adults in the US from July 24 to Aug. 3. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The survey is part of a broader series of polls taken over multiple years to study the consequences of the recession for workers.
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