Nov 6, 2017 - Politics & Policy
Most Americans believe U.S. at lowest point in history
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59% of Americans believe that the United States is currently undergoing the lowest point in its history, according to the American Psychological Association's annual Stress in America poll.
The big thing: A majority of respondents in every surveyed age group agreed that America's lowest point is right now. That includes 56% of those aged 72 and over, who lived through Pearl Harbor and WWII, and 59% of millennials, who largely came of age post-9/11.
How the political landscape fuels Americans' stress, by the numbers:
- Americans of all political backgrounds are worried about our future. That includes 73% of Democrats, 59% of independents, and 56% of Republicans.
- The vast majority of Americans (95%) say they follow the news regularly, but that desire to stay informed causes more than half of them (56%) to experience stress.
- Women are getting more stressed while men are more relaxed. With stress levels measured on a scale from 0 to 10, women saw their stress levels tick up to 5.1 in 2017 from 5.0 in 2016. Meanwhile, men's stress levels dropped to 4.4 from 4.6 over the same period.
- There's a racial divide, too. Hispanic adults and black adults had stress levels of 5.2 and 5.0, respectively, in 2017 — both increases from the previous year. On the other hand, white adults saw their stress level remain the same at 4.7.
