{"id":19924,"date":"2007-01-02T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-01-02T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/the-future-isnt-what-it-used-to-be\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:45:35","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:45:35","slug":"the-future-isnt-what-it-used-to-be","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2007\/01\/02\/the-future-isnt-what-it-used-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future Isn\u2019t What It Used to Be"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just under half (49%) of the respondents in a Pew Research Center survey rate the quality of the life they expect to be leading five years from now higher than their current quality of life \u2014 as recently as 2002, more than six-in-ten (61%) Americans said their future would be better than their present. The survey also finds that a quarter of adults rate their life five years from now the same as they rate their current life, while just 12% rate the future worse (the remaining 14% say they aren\u2019t sure). Thus, looking at only the \u201cworse\u201d and \u201cbetter\u201d ratings, Americans continue to tilt heavily positive \u2014 by a ratio of four-to-one \u2014 in their outlook about the future. Even so, the downturn in personal optimism since 2002 is the sharpest recorded in the more than 40 years that both Pew and the Gallup organization have been conducting this \u201cladder of life\u201d survey. Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s the number of Americans who now rate the quality of the life they expect to be leading five years from now higher than their current quality of life. As recently as 2002, more than six-in-ten (61%) Americans said their future would be better than their present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713064236","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[791],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-19924","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-pew-research-center-staff","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":147,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2007\/01\/02\/the-future-isnt-what-it-used-to-be\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"The Future Isn\u2019t What It Used to Be","description":"That's the number of Americans who now rate the quality of the life they expect to be leading five years from now higher than their current quality of life. As recently as 2002, more than six-in-ten (61%) Americans said their future would be better than their present.","og_title":"The Future Isn\u2019t What It Used to Be","og_description":"That's the number of Americans who now rate the quality of the life they expect to be leading five years from now higher than their current quality of life. As recently as 2002, more than six-in-ten (61%) Americans said their future would be better than their present.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"2cc2f7781c9c7af20d4ee2c65d29cd3e","termId":607}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108250,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19924\/revisions\/108250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=19924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}