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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Minor Issues podcast. I am Mark Thornton at the Mises Institute.
Americans are far more satisfied with the way things are going in their own life than with the US in general.
Economists’ forte is prices and the price system, not opinion polls and surveys. Nevertheless, we are curious to take the pulse of society. In this case, what do people’s subjective perceptions reveal about the world around them?
In particular, the Minor Issue podcast, and the other Mises Institute podcasts, have extensively discussed how various government policies have been impacting people, mostly in America, both positive and negative. In contrast, other voices have declared a different set of conclusions—President Biden, the mainstream media, Paul Krugman, etc. Followers of the left-wing tribe seem particularly perplexed about the outcome of the election relative to what they know about the world.
People have expressed to me their confusion, frustration, and even astonishment by the temperament of the American electorate and voting patterns in the last election. From the Braintrust on the TV show The View, to Paul Krugman’s writings in the New York Times, people seem to think the opinion polls are newly-rigged by political partisanship. After all, according to this view, opinion polls and the latest voting results are at odds with the facts as they are presented in the mainstream media, government statistical offices, and even the stock market!
Let’s take a look at the latest polling results on the reported satisfaction of Americans and see how things actually line up. By the way, the polling results line up very well with the Minor Issues perspective.
In terms of Americans who were “very satisfied” since the Gallup survey began in January 2001, the highest reported level (65 percent) was in January 2020 near the end of the first Trump administration, but prior to covid and the government onslaught that ensued.
At this point in time, food and fuel prices were low, as was unemployment, stocks were high, and the world was basically peaceful. The neocons and technocrats—along with the power elites and mainstream media—were enraged at those conditions and had engaged in misinformation and legal campaigns against Trump.
At the same time, that record-high satisfaction of 65 percent was being reached, Austrian economists (including myself) were declaring that bubble-like conditions by the Fed would soon end in economic crisis.
We can corroborate that, by looking at the second-highest reading of 59 percent, which occurred at the zenith of the Housing Bubble back in 2007. “Very satisfied” then fell to a survey low of 46 percent in 2011 during the Fed’s Great Financial Crisis.
Today, in January 2025, “very satisfied” has fallen to an all-time low of 44 percent over the course of covid, mandates, shutdowns, Fed inflation, and continued massive deficits. Again, some people are puzzled that all the free money, mandated time off, subsidies, bailouts, etc., have made people less satisfied. This puzzlement is probably due to mainstream media misinformation campaigns and/or because they do not understand human nature. Personal satisfaction has a great deal to do with economic confidence and personal enrichment, not government subsidies.
The group that has remained the most “very satisfied” would be characterized as old women, well-to-do Democrats. It might be interesting to take this demographic and compare the audiences of Joe Rogan and The View. While “very satisfied” has fallen from 2020 to 2025 for every demographic marker, for Republicans it has fallen the most. Under that tag, the younger, male, low and middle incomes, regular church-goers, and those not college educated have fallen the most.
This is what we at the Minor Issues podcast and other Mises Institute podcasts have been emphasizing, particularly Radio Rothbard. Government policies and debt and especially the Fed’s inflation are hurting the young middle-income, working-class families and benefiting the wealthy “elites.” The government has made family formation and home ownership prohibitively expensive, but those higher stock prices, higher interest rates, and lucrative government subsidies and contracts are filling the pockets of the middle- and upper-income classes.
In contrast to satisfaction with their personal lives, satisfaction with the US government is only 20 percent versus 77 percent who are dissatisfied with conditions in the US. In recent years, peak satisfaction was 2020 (before covid) and peak dissatisfaction was the covid year, with only marginal improvements since the lockdowns.
If you are in the extreme minority in being personally satisfied and satisfied with the US and are puzzled by your minority status, you will find some resolution in the outsized nefarious impacts that the Federal Reserve secretly plays in our lives, the negative effects of covid policies on some people’s psyche’s, the hidden economic loses or runaway government spending and deficits, and especially the government’s brazen and largely unchecked assaults on personal liberties and constitutional rights.
