Poll showing Americans confident about own finances

Americans are feeling more secure about their own finances with stock and home values rising, even as a growing number say the country is headed down the wrong track, according to a Bloomberg National Poll.

People are more upbeat about a range of financial issues — job security, retirement savings, home values and household income — than they were in February, the last time Bloomberg asked the question. Eight measures of financial well-being surveyed show increasing optimism among poll respondents.

“The economy is doing a lot better,” Nancy Bush, 56, of San Francisco, said in a follow-up interview. “I feel very encouraged, and maybe it’s just a gut feeling, but I think we’ve made it through a four- or five-year recovery.”

Four years to the month after the deepest recession since the 1930s ended, many Americans agree, according to the poll, taken May 31-June 3. Large majorities say they don’t expect to draw down their savings or borrow money this year to help make ends meet.

“It’s been a tough four or five years,” says Holly Daniel, 58, owner with her husband of a sheet metal shop in Durango, Colorado. “But we’re seeing an uptick in business, which is very exciting.”

Daniel says this is “the first time in six years, since the housing bubble burst” that she and her husband are in good shape financially. After seeing their annual disposable income drop to less than $20,000 from $50,000, they’ve recovered.

Bloomberg

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