A new Gallup survey shows long-term optimism among U.S. adults fell sharply in 2025, reaching the weakest point since the measure was first tracked nearly two decades ago.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Americans’ optimism about their future dropped to a record low in 2025, according to a newly released Gallup survey, marking a sharp erosion in how U.S. adults view their long-term quality of life.
The poll found that just 59.2 percent of Americans said they expect to be living a “high-quality” life five years from now, a metric Gallup refers to as “future life ratings.” That figure represents the lowest reading since Gallup began asking the question nearly 20 years ago and reflects a cumulative decline of 9.1 percentage points since 2020. Gallup estimates the drop translates to roughly 24.5 million fewer Americans feeling hopeful about the future compared with five years earlier.
While much of the decline occurred between 2021 and 2023, optimism fell another 3.5 percentage points between 2024 and 2025 alone. By the fourth quarter of 2025, only 48.0 percent of Americans rated both their current lives and their future lives highly enough to be classified as “thriving,” down more than 11 points from the 59.2 percent peak recorded in June 2021.
Gallup reported that future life optimism declined across Democrats, Republicans, and independents over the past several years, with each group experiencing an approximate five-point drop from 2021 to 2024. The steepest overall decline from 2021 to 2025 occurred among Democrats, whose share expecting to be thriving in five years fell by nearly 13 percentage points. In 2025 alone—the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term—that figure dropped by nearly eight points among Democrats. Over the same four-year period, optimism among Republicans declined by four points, while independents saw a 6.5-point decrease.
The survey did not ask respondents to explain their views, but Gallup’s National Health and Well-Being Index research director Dan Witters said the downturn began during the inflation surge of 2021 and 2022 under the Biden administration. Witters told The Washington Post that lingering affordability pressures played a significant role, noting that “even as the pandemic was kind of receding, those affordability issues … had a lot to do with it.”
E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, said broader economic disruptions since the COVID-19 pandemic have repeatedly weighed on public sentiment. “Many economic indicators and measures of consumers’ feelings about the economy have plummeted at various times since Covid, whether that was during the initial government-imposed lockdowns, inflation hitting 40-year highs, [or] the housing market freezing over,” Antoni told the Daily Caller News Foundation. He added that partisan perceptions have also influenced survey results, arguing that some Democrat respondents have projected expectations of high inflation under President Trump that have not materialized, while Republicans remain dissatisfied due to what Antoni described as lingering economic damage from the Biden years.
Other recent data point to continued unease about economic conditions. Separate polling has shown growing concern among consumers, while U.S. small business confidence slipped in January. According to a National Federation of Independent Business survey, small business optimism fell to 99.3, and the group’s Uncertainty Index rose seven points from December 2025. Earlier reporting also showed small business optimism weakening at the start of the year.
At the same time, Gallup data released separately suggest Americans hold mixed views about the near-term economy. In another Gallup survey, 49 percent of respondents said they expect U.S. economic growth to improve over the next six months, compared with 36 percent who were pessimistic and 13 percent who anticipated no change.
Gallup said the findings are part of its National Health and Well-Being Index and are based on 22,125 interviews conducted across four quarterly measurement periods in 2025. The respondents were drawn from the Gallup Panel, a probability-based sample representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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