For many people, everything is better at home. The meals taste
better. The beds are more comfortable. One grows accustomed to
everyday surroundings, like the weather, and that familiarity
provides comfort. Regardless of where they live, Americans tend to
develop a sense of community pride, cheer for the home team, and
embrace their hometown's imperfections.
This tendency illustrates a macrosociological effect, referred
to as local proximity bias. It's an effect that is apparent when
comparing public satisfaction with conditions at the national,
state, and local levels. Gallup polling consistently shows that
people tend to be more satisfied with circumstances in their local
communities than they are with those in the country at large.
A Jan. 12-15 Gallup Poll* provides a broad example. Just under
half of Americans (46%) say they are satisfied with the way things
are going in the United States at this time, while 53% are
dissatisfied. When asked about the way things are going in their
states, the numbers are significantly more positive, with 53%
saying they are satisfied and 45% dissatisfied. And when it comes
to their local communities, the percentage saying they are
satisfied jumps to roughly three-quarters (76%), while just 23% are
dissatisfied with the way things are going locally.
Incidentally, satisfaction with the way things are going in
one's state has dropped 12 percentage points (from 65% to 53%)
since Gallup last asked the question in January 2001. This
decreased level of statewide satisfaction probably reflects the
poor economic conditions of the last three years, and the
well-publicized budget crises that are occurring in many states.
However, the number of Americans saying they're satisfied with the
way things are going in their local communities remains unchanged
since that January 2001 poll, at 76%.
Satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States
as a whole, a trend that Gallup measures on a monthly basis, has
seesawed substantially during the tumultuous events of the past
three years, but currently stands 10 percentage points lower than
its January 2001 level of 56%.
Other Satisfaction Factors
Satisfaction with the way things are going in America varies
according to demographic characteristics such as gender, age, and
income, and those factors interact with the local proximity effect
in different way.
Men are somewhat more likely than women to report being
satisfied with the way things are going in this country -- 52% to
41%. The gender gap narrows with regard to satisfaction at the
state level (56% for men, 50% for women) and essentially disappears
when it comes to men's and women's satisfaction with the way things
are going in their local communities.
Stereotypes about the optimism of youth and cynicism of older
people may have some support in these data. Six in 10 Americans
aged 18 to 29 say they are satisfied with the way things are going
in the United States. Among those aged 65 and older, just a third
(33%) are satisfied. The youngest age group is also significantly
more satisfied than the oldest group with the way things are going
in their states (64% compared with 49%), but the two groups are
equally satisfied with the way things are going in their local
communities.
Can money buy happiness? Maybe not, but the survey results do
imply that higher incomes lead to higher levels of satisfaction
with the way things are going in the United States. Among Americans
in the highest income group ($75,000 or more), 62% report being
satisfied. No other income group reports those levels of
satisfaction. Those with household incomes of less than $20,000 are
least satisfied at 32%. The income gap diminishes somewhat when
looking at satisfaction with conditions at the state level, but
reappears to some degree when respondents are asked about the way
things are going in their local communities. Eighty-one percent of
people in the highest income bracket are satisfied with their local
communities, as are 63% of people in the lowest income bracket.
*Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,004
national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Jan 12-15, 2004. For
results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say
with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is
±3 percentage points.
