LANSING – Michigan consumers are feeling better about the economy and their personal futures than they have in nearly a decade, according to the latest State of the State Survey conducted by the Institute of Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University.
While the optimistic feelings still do not match some of the giddy highs residents expressed in the 1990s, MSU economics professor and SOSS director Charles Ballard said the mood is in keeping with the state’s economic improvements.
The survey, conducted from August 23 to October 10 of 1,018 residents, also found President Barack Obama’s job performance ratings largely unchanged though a little higher than the previous survey. Governor Rick Snyder’s job performance ratings were slightly lower, but not considered statistically significant.
The findings showed that 42 percent of those questioned said they were better off than a year before, while 33 percent said they were worse off, and 25.6 percent were about the same.
In the last survey, just 34.2 percent said they were better off. The number expressing confidence about their current status was the highest since the survey taken in the summer of 2002, when 40.2 percent said they were better off.
In 1999, 61.6 percent said they were better off than the year before. A decade later, in 2009, 62.6 percent said they were worse off than the year before.
The survey also showed that 61 percent of the respondents thought they would be better off in another year. While close to the same level of optimism respondents showed in the spring (during the summer that optimism had fallen dramatically to 48.7 percent), it was still the highest response since the summer of 2004, Ballard said.
In contrast, just 19.3 percent said they expected to be worse off. In the last survey, 29.8 percent said they thought they would be worse off. In 2003, 19.1 percent of those questioned thought they would be worse off.
Belying that optimism, however, 47.8 percent said their current financial situations were excellent or good. In the summer survey, a total of 54.4 percent said their status was excellent or good.
In terms of Obama’s job performance, 42.8 percent gave him excellent or good ratings, slightly higher than the 41 percent who gave him good ratings in the summer survey. The measure is far below the nearly 71 percent approval rating he received when he first took office in 2009, but better than the 32.7 percent his approvals fell to in the fall of 2010.
Snyder’s approval rating fell slightly to 35.5 percent, down from 36.8 percent in the summer. That still is higher than the average 31.8 percent approval rating he had in 2011.
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