Most Americans Optimistic For New Year

After a politically tumultuous year capped by the passage of massive changes to the tax code, more than half of U.S. adults say they expect 2018 to be better, similar to the percentage of people who said the same about 2017.

In a Morning Consult poll of 2,201 adults conducted Dec. 21-24, 53 percent said they believe 2018 will be better than 2017, compared to 21 percent who said it would be worse and 16 percent who said it would be about the same. Ten percent did not know or had no opinion. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

That’s not too far from what people said at the end of last year, when 55 percent expressed optimism that 2017 would be better than 2016. Twenty-four percent predicted that 2017 would be worse than the previous year, and 11 percent said it would be about the same.

If this year’s optimism seems high, it’s probably due to the positivity that surrounds the festive time of year — along with a lot of cheerful economic rhetoric, said Stef Woods, an American University professor who has studied behavior, culture and marketing.

“What you’re hearing in news and media is there will be tax cuts and it will benefit people,” Woods said in a Dec. 20 phone interview. “I think reflecting on economic growth around the holiday season, buying gifts, thinking on resolutions — at the end of the year, we would hope we’re hopeful.”

When the Dec. 14-18 survey respondents were asked what their New Year’s resolution would be about, should they make a resolution, the top choice was related to health, with 64 percent picking this category. Finance-related resolutions came in second, at 57 percent.

Less-popular resolutions were related to relationships (chosen by 44 percent of respondents), leisure (43 percent) and careers (40 percent).

Woods, the American University professor, said that makes sense — not everyone has a romantic partner who is willing to work on improving the relationship, and many people don’t have the luxury of choosing leisure activities or careers. Health and finance, on the other hand, are areas in which everyone can reflect about personal and incremental ways to improve.

Sixty-four percent of poll respondents said they did not make a resolution for 2017. Of those who did, 31 percent said they kept their resolution for nine months or more, but 57 percent gave up after less than six months.