Measuring ‘economic anxiety’ of the American public

Listeners to Marketplace (weeknights at 6:30 following NewsWorks Tonight) have come to count on Kai Ryssdal for a road map to navigate the twists and turns of the economy. Twisting, turning, and churning is how some might describe their digestive system when asked to consider how the economy feels on a personal level.

 

“The recession ended five and a half years ago, we’re adding jobs every month, the gross domestic product is growing, and, yet, what we’ve found in all of our reporting is that people are not feeling the recovery in their daily lives, in their own economies,” explained Ryssdal.

That disconnect led the Marketplace team to create the Economic Anxiety Index with Edison Research. “We wanted to quantify what we’ve been seeing and hearing in our reporting,” Ryssdal said. “We wanted to know what it is that people are worried about. “

He discusses some of their initial findings with NewsWorks Tonight host, Dave Heller.