On 8 November 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump defied critics and pollsters alike with a surprise election win.
Many voters hoped a political outsider would boost their job prospects and revive embattled industries – so one year on, how do US workers feel about the future of their jobs and industries?
BBC Capital commissioned pollsters SmithGeiger to survey 2,060 people across the US, asking whether they felt more or less optimistic about their job prospects a year after the election.
We found that almost half of adult Americans
do not feel any different about the future of their job since last November’s election, with fairly equal portions optimistic and pessimistic about the direction of their employment situation. Given a tumultuous year in which economic conditions in the US flourished at the same time as the Trump administration struggled to win over the American public, the stability of individual perceptions about their jobs and industries may seem surprising.
Key economic indicators such as employment rates, wage levels and the stock market have performed well during Donald Trump’s first year in office. Unemployment has fallen to a 17-year low rate of 4.1%, average hourly wages have risen by 2.8% in the past year and the S&P 500 is up 21% since the election. It is worth putting these figures into context: all of these indicators continue trends that were already in place under President Barack Obama, where the stock market and wages were rising and unemployment falling.
But most polls have shown the American public to be pessimistic about the direction of the nation as a whole. For example, a recent Economist/YouGov poll found
60% of Americans think the nation is on the wrong track, compared to only 27% that feel America is headed in the right direction. The same poll at the end of January found 52% of Americans were pessimistic about the nation’s path, compared with 35% optimistic about the trajectory of the country. This rise in pessimism may be linked to President Trump’s disapproval ratings, which have risen by 10 points over the year.
The juxtaposition of positive employment measures and negative perceptions of the nation’s future complicates expectations for how Americans may evaluate the outlook for their jobs and industries.
Indeed, the large portion of Americans who don't feel differently about the outlook for their careers since Trump’s victory may reflect the conflicting relationship between generally positive employment and economic performance and broader pessimism about the direction of the nation.
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