It turns out that the inflation wave of 2021-23 is a big deal, according to the mother of American opinion polling.

A long-running Gallup poll found that the percentage of US adults who expect a high quality of life in the next five years fell to 59.2%, the lowest since the organization began asking it nearly two decades ago.

The poll — based on data collected in four quarterly measurements in 2025 of 22,125 US adults — revealed a notable decline in sentiment, measuring a 3.5-percent drop-off from 2024.

“If you look at the level of optimism for the future life, that has fallen significantly from 2021 to 2023, and that corresponds to the worst inflation crisis,” Dan Witters, director of research on the health and health index of the nation at Gallup, said. luck. “The economic pressures to afford things like food and fuel and gas and health care — that can have a devastating effect.”

Additionally, the study found the number of Americans who rated their current and future lives as high enough to be considered “prosperous” fell to 48%, down more than 11 points from the high in June 2021, and the sixth lowest rating of all 176 measurements taken since 2008.

The results come as a confluence of factors that hinder the way Americans live. In the past few years, inflation, domestic conflict, economic uncertainty, and political turmoil have made many Americans feel increasingly pessimistic about the future. Americans trust in looking for a job hit rock bottom, and home ownership has grew more unattainable by the younger generation. All of these are expansions K-shaped economy leaving millions of Americans in the dust.

“Their optimism for the future is fading now,” Witters said. “(It’s) destruction at a rate far greater than how they evaluate their lives now.”

Inflation and politics fuel pessimism

Although inflation has cooled in 2024, falling to 2.5% year on year in August, Americans remain pessimistic. Witters attributes that persistent pessimism to political partisanship.

“In 2025, the sharp decline of the Democrats combined with no change this time among the Republicans will not cancel each other out.

Witters noted that it is common for life ratings to fluctuate among political parties when control of the White House changes. However, expectations for a high quality of life decreased significantly among Democrats, a 7.6 percentage point decrease in future life ratings from 2024. For context, the sentiment of Republicans decreased by 5.9 percentage points after Biden took office in 2021 while the optimism of Democrats increased by 4.4 points.

Even among Republicans, optimism rose only 0.9 points last year. And optimism among Independents fell by 1.5 points.

“I think that to the extent that that kind of partisanship can influence overall national numbers, that’s clearly what happened here,” Witters said.

Gallup asked respondents to choose a step on a numbered scale from zero to 10 that best represents their quality of life, where zero indicates the worst possible life and 10 indicates the best life.

By race and ethnicity, Hispanic adults saw the largest decline in optimism from last year, falling six points. White adults also saw a dramatic decline of 4.6 points, while sentiment among Black Americans fell 2.2 points.