In 1973, “The Exorcist” was the top movie at the box office, “Killing Me Softly With His Song” by Roberta Flack dominated the airwaves and, according to 58% of Americans, life for “people like them” was better.
That’s according to a Pew Research Center Poll conducted last month.
Only 23% of respondents said life is better today than it was 50 years ago and 19% said it is the same.
White adults were the most likely to have a rosy view of the past, with 63% saying life is worse for them today. More than half (53%) of Hispanic adults also think today is worse for people like them, as well as 48% of Asian respondents and 41% of Black respondents.
Older adults are more likely to have a pessimistic view of today. A little more than half of adults age 18 to 49 said life is worse for people like them today than 50 years ago compared to 65% of adults age 50 and older. Republicans are also more likely to say today is worse for people like them.
“Roughly seven-in-ten Republicans (72%) say that life is worse today, up from 59% who said this in 2021. Among Democrats, 43% now say this, up from 30% two years ago,” Pew said.
Overall, the share of Americans who said life today is worse than in the past is up 15 percentage points compared to summer 2021. Over the past three years, Americans have dealt with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, inflation, climate change, rapidly changing technology, political scandals and other factors.
“Americans are in a negative mood about the current state of the country, with large majorities expressing dissatisfaction with the economy and overall national conditions,” Pew explained. “And when they look toward the not-too-distant future, they see a country that in many respects will be worse than it is today.”
Analysis of a similar Pew survey conducted in 2017 found that “views of the current economy are a strong indicator of whether people say life for people like them is better today than it was 50 years ago,” and other recent polls have shown that Americans are stressed about the economy.
For more than a year, high inflation has impacted finances in the U.S., and the Federal Reserve Bank’s efforts to tame inflation with interest rate hikes have just made financial woes deepen for many. However, 1973 was also a difficult economic year for Americans.
“During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military and to gain leverage in the post-war peace negotiations,” according to the Department of State. This embargo put strain on the U.S. economy.
Additionally, President Richard Nixon had his own scandal on the horizon 50 years ago. In 1974, he would resign amidst the Watergate scandal, “stemming from a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 campaign,” per the White House.
Despite generally negative attitudes about the current state of the nation, a majority of Americans said they generally have at least some confidence in the future of the U.S., according to Pew. At the same time, significant percentages believe that U.S. economy will be weaker, the United States will be less important in the world, political divisions will be wider and there will be a larger gap between the rich and the poor by 2050.
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