Now and then

Opinion surveys began in the 1930s, when the state of the economy was obviously a major issue.  However, questions on "the economy" didn't appear until much later--the earliest ones I have found are from 1976.  Before then, questions focused on specific aspects of the economy--there were a few on "business conditions," but more on changes in your own situation.   The first of those was in June 1941:  "Financially, are you better off, or worse off than last year? "  31% said better off, 18% worse off, and 51% about the same.  The figure shows the net sentiment (better-worse) every time this question was asked (with some variation in form) from 1941 until the mid-1970s.  

Most of the questions asked about the previous year, but some asked about the "last few" or "last two or three" years.  It looks like assessments of the last few years were more positive than assessments of the last year.  After the mid-1970s, the questions get more numerous.   Here are results of the "last year" question from 1976-95.  

Here are results of the "last few years," which has been included in the GSS since 1972:

There is clearly a difference:  the balance on the last few years question is almost always positive--the only exceptions are in 2010 and 2012--while the balance on the last year question is often negative.  I'm not sure why this would be the case, but it means that you need to have different standards for evaluating the two questions.   Common sense suggest that they will rise and fall together to some extent, but how close is the connection?  I'll look at that in a future post.

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]