Facts
- Seventy percent of Americans agreed that the U.S. is in decline, according to a survey by the American Communities Project at Michigan State University, published on October 29, 2026. That is up from 55% in 2025 and matches the 2023 level.
- The survey was conducted by the research firm SSRS. It interviewed 2,155 U.S. adults over two weeks in September 2026, using an online panel and telephone. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
- Forty-seven percent said they had ‘serious financial problems’ from price increases, up from 30% in 2025 and 27% in July 2023. Among adults ages 18 to 29, the figure was 61%. It was 65% among Hispanic respondents and 63% among Black respondents.
- Thirty percent named healthcare a top concern in their community, up from 20% in 2025. That made it the second most cited issue after inflation. Among respondents earning $75,000 to $99,999, 36% said so, as did 35% of Black respondents.
- The authors, project director Dante Chinni and manager Ari Pinkus, pointed to inflation and rising healthcare costs, as well as policy changes and public health challenges since 2025, including people losing health insurance, hospital closures and disease outbreaks.
- They wrote that the 2025 dip in the ‘decline’ figure was largely driven by communities that voted for Donald Trump in 2024, and that the return to 70% suggests those communities’ hopes have taken a hit. The article gives no overall partisan breakdown of the 2026 results, so readers cannot tell from it how Republicans and Democrats answered.
- The piece was written by the survey’s own researchers and republished by PBS NewsHour. A separate economic report this week showed consumer prices up 3.6% in September from a year earlier.
Quotes
Dante Chinni and Ari Pinkus, American Communities Project, wrote: “The data here represents this moment in time, and it will likely move after November.”
Source Read the analysis on PBS NewsHour here.
Image US Capitol dome Jan 2006, cc by 2.5.
