As Trump Recession Looms, New WSJ Poll Backs Call for Democrats to Embrace Economic Populism

A new poll from The Wall Street Journal released Tuesday is sparking calls on more Democrats to embrace economic populism, as it shows that Americans are still feeling gloomy about their financial prospects.

According to the poll, a record-low 25% of Americans now say they have a good chance at improving their standard of living, while almost 70% said they no longer believe that merely working hard is enough to get ahead.

On top of all this, more than 75% lack confidence that future generations will be better off than they are today.

The poll shows that US President Donald Trump is facing problems similar to the ones that former President Joe Biden faced over his last year in office, in that economic pessimism appears high even as the unemployment rate and the rate of inflation appear low by historical standards.

One major issue that appears to be weighing down economic sentiment is the cost of housing, as The Wall Street Journal writes that "fewer than one-quarter of respondents said they were very confident they could buy a home if they wanted to," while "some 56% said they had little or no confidence they could do so."

Democratic pollster John Anzalone took stock of the poll in a post on X and said that it "shows how important it is for Dems to get a strong economic message" given that "70% of people said they believe the American dream no longer holds true."

Democratic media operative Dan Ancona zeroed in on a question in the poll showing that a majority of Americans agreed with the statement that Trump and the GOP "are trying to scare and divide Americans so they can cut their own taxes and keep wealth flowing to the very rich."

In fact, roughly 27% of respondents who voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election either somewhat or strongly agreed with that statement. Given this, Ancona called the populist economic framing "a pretty good starting point."

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) also jumped at the findings of the WSJ poll and said that stamping out economic inequality in the US needed to be Democrats' priority.

"We must tackle the economic divides tearing our nation apart and make the economic independence of every family and community our highest mission," he declared. "I call it a new economic patriotism."

The WSJ poll showing Americans' sour economic mood comes as more economic forecasters have been raising the odds of a recession hitting the US economy.

Fortune reported on Tuesday that investment bank UBS believes the probability of a recession occurring in the near future has grown significantly in recent months, although it notes there is still a great deal of uncertainty over what the economy will look like in six months.

"The key message is the US economy, by these hard data measures, is locked in a prolonged phase of stagnation or slow contraction, warranting caution even as outright collapse has not yet materialized," wrote Fortune. "This aligns with other analysts' warnings that, even if a recession doesn't materialize, the economy is headed for a bout of 1970s-style 'stagflation,' a combination of a stagnating economy and rising inflation."

Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi has also been sounding the alarm about the state of the American economy, and he believes state-level data are already showing the US "on the edge of recession," according to Newsweek.

As Zandi explained this week, both California and New York, which together account for over 20% of American gross domestic product, are essentially flat at the moment, while southern states that have been the strongest in terms of economic growth in recent years have been slowing down.

"I don't think the economy is in a recession, at least not at this point," Zandi said in an interview with Newsweek. "But it feels like it's on the brink, it's on the precipice of this recession."

Along with a potential impending recession, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out that Americans are well aware of structural inequalities.

"CEO pay is up 1,085% since 1978, while worker pay is up just 24%. Millions live paycheck to paycheck as they struggle to afford basic goods," said Reich. "Is it any wonder why 70% of people said they believe the American dream no longer holds true or never did?"