Americans see ‘state of the union’ as divided, but economic views tick up: Poll

A majority of Americans described the state of the nation as “divided,” while their outlook on the economy appeared to tick up, a new poll found.

The new CBS News/YouGov poll found that 61 percent of U.S. adults would describe the state of the country as “divided,” if they were to give the State of the Union address on Thursday. Forty-five percent described the country as “declining,” while 37 percent described the U.S. as “weak,” according to the poll.

Republicans and Democrats appeared to share some similar views on the state of the nation, with 58 percent of both Republicans and Democrats describing the country as “divided.” However, Republicans were more likely to describe the country as “declining” and “weak” than Democrats, the poll found.

President Biden is slated to give his State of the Union address to both chambers of Congress at 9 p.m. Thursday, where he is expected to highlight his policy priorities for the rest of the year and what he has accomplished in the past three years.

Not as many respondents had positive descriptions for the state of the nation. Just 15 percent described it as “strong,” 12 percent said it was “united” and 11 percent said it was “prospering,” according to the poll.

Despite few describing the U.S. as “prospering,” CBS News noted that those who described the economy as good reached the highest share since the fall of 2021.

Thirty-nine percent described the economy as “very good” or “fairly good” in the new poll, slightly up from the 37 percent who described it as so at this time last year. Another 57 percent said it was “very bad” or “fairly bad.”

The poll also found that immigration issues remain a top concern among respondents. Forty-five percent said the situation at the border is a “crisis,” 30 percent said it was “very serious,” 18 percent said “somewhat serious” and 7 percent said it was “not much of a problem.”

The poll was conducted Feb. 28 to March 1 among 2,159 U.S. residents and has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.