(NewsNation) — Just over half of Americans considered themselves to be “thriving” in 2023, which is only slightly above the reading during the Great Recession and the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new analysis.
Gallup found that 52.1% percent of Americans in 2023 evaluated their lives well enough to be categorized as “thriving.” That’s a slight dip from 52.8% in 2022 and 55% in 2021.
Only the Great Recession era during 2008-2009 (50.2%) and the first year of the pandemic in 2020 (50.1%) had lower readings than last year.
“Economic factors are likely continuing to play a role in the prolonged erosion of thriving percentages, as Americans are still recovering from the previous record-high inflation rates experienced the past two years,” the report said.
Gallup classifies Americans as “thriving,” “struggling” or “suffering” based on how they rate their current and future lives on a scale from 0 to 10. Those who rate their current life a 7 or higher and their expected life five years down the road an 8 or higher are considered thriving.
The percentage of Americans estimated to be “suffering” was 4.7% in 2023, slightly lower than 4.8% in 2022 but still near a record high.
Americans’ thriving rate also varies across the political spectrum. Today, independents have the lowest thriving rate (48.4%) of the three major political groups. Last year, roughly 56% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans were considered to be thriving.
“Electorally, the drop in the thriving percentage — particularly among independents — is potentially bad news for Joe Biden’s reelection chances in 2024,” Gallup noted.
The most recent survey for the last quarter of 2023 included responses from 6,386 U.S. adults and was conducted from Nov. 30 to Dec. 7, 2023.