Americans report feeling happier as states begin reopening after lockdown, poll finds
Americans are saying they feel happier as states start reopening from coronavirus lockdowns, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday.
Seventy-two percent of Americans said they felt happy “during a lot of the day yesterday” in the poll conducted from April 27 to May 10, compared to 67% of people who said the same thing a month prior.
Just less than half of Americans also say they’re worried — down from 59% in late March and early April, according to the poll, which has a margin of error of two percentage points.
Self-reported happiness depended on several factors, including political party and income.
Americans who make less than $36,000 a year are more likely to report feeling worried, bored, and lonely, and less likely to say they felt happy compared to people in higher income brackets.
Fifty-six percent of Americans with incomes less than $36,000 said they felt happiness compared to 74% and 75% of Americans making between $36,000 and $90,000 and more than $90,000 respectively, according to the poll.
The majority of U.S. states have begun to reopen from coronavirus lockdowns in some capacity and cases keep going up as people go back to everyday life, The New York Times reported. Nearly 1.5 million people in the US have confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States, with more than 89,000 deaths reported as of Monday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said before Congress last week that reopening too quickly could lead to “some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery,” according to The New York Times.
The unemployment rate rose to 14.7% in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits, according to CBS News.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Sunday that the national unemployment rate could increase to 25%, Politico reported.
“Those numbers sound about right for what the peak may be,” Powell said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” when asked if the unemployment rate could reach 20% or 25%.
One in five American workers lost their jobs in March, according to a Federal Reserve survey, according to Politico.
The Gallup poll also found a partisan divide in which Americans reported more happiness and less worry during the pandemic.
Two-thirds of Democrats reported feeling happiness “during a lot of the day yesterday,” while 77% of Republicans said the same — an 11 point gap. And while 58% of Democrats said they felt worried in the past day, just 38% of Republicans told Gallup they spent considerable time worrying.
Forty-four percent of independents said they had worried in the past day, according to Gallup.
Democrats and Republicans have differed on their perspectives of the coronavirus pandemic in other polls.
The majority of Democrats believe the death toll is higher than reported but most Republicans think it’s lower, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll.
According to the poll, 63% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans said the death toll was higher. Meanwhile, 40% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats said the number of deaths is less than what’s reported.
This story was originally published May 18, 2020 at 11:44 AM with the headline "Americans report feeling happier as states begin reopening after lockdown, poll finds."