Satisfaction About Life By Americans Rises

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

American’s are more satisfied, overall, than they have been at any time since a year ago, according to a Gallup poll. The conclusion makes sense. Unemployment has improved a bit, while GDP improvement is very modest on the tail of a strong shopping season. Government reduced personal tax cuts remain in place.

Gallup reports that

The majority of Americans remain dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., but the percentage who are satisfied continues to increase. Satisfaction, now at 22%, is higher than at any point since last spring.

It does not take a poll to tell most Americans what their major concerns are. They just have to look at the headlines everyday, as well as the environment around them

The economy in general (31%) and unemployment (30%) are the two specific problems mentioned most often, as they have been each month since December 2009. Sixteen percent of Americans, the highest percentage since January 1996, mention dissatisfaction with government, which mirrors the finding that Congress now has the lowest approval rating in Gallup history.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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