Just over half of Americans dread what 2022 may hold for the country – with 50% predicting the new year will be bad for the economy amid rising inflation and supply chain shortages , according to a new poll released on the last day of 2021.
With the 51% fearful of what 2022 will mean for the United States, 54% fear what will happen to the world next year, according to the Axios / Momentive survey.
Americans were less fearful when asked what they thought 2022 would bring them personally, with 68% saying they had more hope of having a good year and only 30% saying they were more afraid.
Overall, however, the poll shows that Americans are slightly less optimistic heading into 2022 than they were in 2021. Last year, 25% said they feared 2021 would be theirs. was booking, and 73% said they were hopeful.
Laura Wronski, senior director of research science at Momentive, told Axios that “the end of last year was a particularly encouraging time” due to a change of presidency as well as the promise of COVID-19 vaccines .
“I think after this year we realized that it wouldn’t magically improve, that we will have to live with COVID for a while,” she said.
As America grapples with a wave of coronavirus cases due to the highly contagious variant of Omicron, 35% of Americans say they would like to hear less about COVID-19 in 2022. Meanwhile, 61 % said they were more optimistic than fearful about the progress of the pandemic in 2022, compared to 76% who said the same in 2021.
Americans were divided on the outlook for the economy in 2022, with 50% saying it would be a bad year and 48% saying it would be a good year. However, more than twice as many respondents (17%) predicted that the economy would have a “very bad year” than those who predicted it would be a “very good year” (8%).
The economy and jobs were also at the top of Americans’ list of the most important issues facing the country, with 31% of them saying it was what matters most to them. Democracy was second on the list, with 17% calling it the most important issue. Health care (16%), education (8%) and the environment (8%) completed the list of the top five problems.
Only 7 percent of those polled cited immigration as the most important issue, while terrorism and foreign policy received 2 percent each in the poll.
Americans were also bearish about President Biden’s future, with 53% saying 2022 would be a bad year for him (including 32% predicting a “very bad year”), and 44% predicting a good year for Biden – with only 11% predicting a “very good year”.
As Americans enter 2022 with concern, the poll suggests they will be relieved that 2021 is over. Forty-three percent of respondents described the old year as ‘exhausting’ and ‘worrying’, 31% called it ‘chaotic’, 21% said it was ‘hectic’, while 18% chose “Hell” as the word that best sums up their 2021.
Only 14% said 2021 was ‘great’ for them, 12% called the year ‘meh’ and 8% said it was ‘great’.
The poll polled 2,602 Americans from Dec. 14-16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
