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Gallup: Confidence in economy highest since 2008
With just one week until the election, people in the United States are more confident about the economy than at any time since 2008, Gallup reported Tuesday.
The polling company said its weekly confidence index rose to -14 for the week ending Sunday, its highest point since Gallup started a daily tracker on the issue in 2008.
Those findings came exactly seven days before voters will choose between President Obama and the GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, in an election in which the economy has remained a dominant issue.
Gallup said Tuesday that its confidence index found upswings in how Americans felt about both current conditions and whether they think the economy is getting better.
The pollster found that 45 percent of people now think the economy is improving, compared to 49 percent that see it on the decline — also its most positive findings since 2008.
But at the same time, Gallup cautioned that a majority of people still believe the economy is doing either fair or poor, and that it doesn’t believe the index will rise into positive territory in the coming weeks.
Gallup also said that there were plenty of times before 2008 when Americans were more confident about the economy than they are now.
Still, the findings from Gallup are the latest in a string of positive economic reports in the weeks leading up to the election.
The Labor Department said earlier this month that the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent in September, as the economy added 114,000 jobs.
A separate report released Tuesday also found an increase in home prices across the country, and other surveys have found an uptick in consumer confidence.
The government has said it plans to release one more employment report on Friday, even after Hurricane Sandy paralyzed much of the East Coast and all but ground the presidential campaigns to a halt.
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