The coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine were and still are two of the main drivers of macroeconomic changes around the world, from rising energy and food prices to hundreds of thousands of jobs cut due to pandemic-induced hiring sprees by big tech firms in particular. Four years after the outbreak of corona and two years since the beginning of Russia's war on its Western neighbor, economic worries for U.S. residents seem to be easing again.
A Statista Consumer Insights survey shows that at the start of 2024, roughly one quarter of respondents claimed their personal economic situation was negative or very negative, while 18 percent had a very positive outlook on their finances, up two percent year-over-year. A third of survey participants claimed that they saw their country's economic performance as negative or very negative, down two percent from the previous period in 2023 as well.
Changes in perspective were especially pronounced from 2022 to 2023. Since the survey waves analyzed ended in March of the corresponding year, respondents were still optimistic due to the easing of coronavirus restrictions, with 46 percent having a positive or very view of their finances and only 28 percent claiming that their country was in a bad or very bad place in financial terms. This shifted drastically after Russia's attack on Ukraine on February 28, 2022, and the resulting energy price spikes in the following fall and winter, which is evident in the results for 2023.
