Hill Poll: Pessimism deepens for many voters on personal finances

Forty percent of likely voters expect to be worse off financially when they go to the polls next year, a new poll for The Hill found, while 40 percent expect to be about the same as they are now.

Only 18 percent said they expect their personal finances to improve.The latest results were more pessimistic than results from earlier surveys taken on behalf of The Hill.

In September, 40 percent expected their personal finances to remain about the same, while 31 percent said they would be worse off and 23 percent said they would be better off.

{mosads}In July, 37 percent said they expected their finances to be about the same in a year’s time, while 33 percent thought they would be worse off and 27 percent expected to be better off.

The latest responses, from 1,000 likely voters polled by Pulse Opinion Research on Dec. 1, with a 3-point margin of error, come amid some heartening news for the economy, including record-level consumer spending after the Thanksgiving holiday and a drop in unemployment from 9 percent to 8.6 percent.

Still, not all groups see their lots improving: More than half (56 percent) of respondents making less than $20,000 expect their finances to get worse.

Forty-eight percent of those making between $20,000 and $40,000 and 42 percent of those making between $75,000 and $100,000 also expect their situations to slip.

Click here to view data from The Hill Poll.