Coast-to-Coast: Americans' Economic Outlook by Region

As discussed in this week's related Finance & Commerce article (link at right), Americans' ratings of economic conditions in the United States declined steadily between the first quarter of 2001 and the first quarter of 2002. Breaking these numbers down into four regions -- East, South, Midwest and West -- offers some insight on how perceptions of the economy are changing in different areas of the country.

The percentage of respondents who rate current economic conditions as good or excellent has increased and decreased relatively consistently across the regions (see chart above.).

However, the respondents in each of the four regions differ in their perceptions about whether economic conditions are getting better or worse.

The Midwest was the most pessimistic in the first and second quarters of 2001, with the largest difference between those who felt the economy was getting better and those who felt the economy was getting worse. In the first quarter of 2001, 24% of Midwesterners felt the economy was getting better and 67% felt it was getting worse -- a difference of 43 percentage points. This gap increased slightly to 44 percentage points in the second quarter of 2001. In the first quarter of 2002 in the Midwest, 48% felt the economy was getting better and 43% felt it was getting worse.

Residents of the West were the most pessimistic in third quarter of 2001, with 26% believing the economy was getting better and 66% believing it was getting worse. The first quarter-2002 outlook in the West was virtually the same as in the Midwest.

Southerners seem to be less pessimistic overall than their neighbors in other U.S. regions. The South was generally the least pessimistic during 2001, with the percentage of those thinking the economy was getting better hovering around 30% for the first three quarters and climbing to 36% in the fourth quarter of 2001. The South was the most optimistic region in the first quarter of 2002, with 51% believing that the economy is improving and 41% believing that it is worsening.

Changes to the economic outlook in the East over the past five quarters have been relatively unremarkable in comparison to the other regions. The East had the most pessimistic outlook in quarter one 2002, by a very slight margin. Forty-seven percent (47%) of Easterners believed the economy was getting better in the first quarter of 2002, compared to 48% in the Midwest, 49% in the West, and 51% in the South.

These results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of around 1,000 adults, 18 years and older, conducted each month between January 2001 and April 2002. For results based on each monthly sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3%. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.