Poll: 75% say recovery lies beyond 2013
The latest quarterly poll from the Pan Atlantic SMS Group — covering economic and public policy questions — has 75% of respondents saying the state's recovery from recession will happen in 2013 or later.
Of those, most of the survey's 400 respondents — 60.8% — think Maine won't see an economic recovery until beyond 2014.
That figure mirrors the level of optimism about an economic recovery respondents had two years ago. Then, 59.1% of respondents said recovery would be beyond 2012.
While that number remained the same in the latest survey, the small percentage of respondents who thought the state was already beyond the recession doubled — from a modest 1.7% to 3.5%.
Overall, the survey shows that Mainers are more optimistic about the economic direction of the state than they have been since before the recession, in 2007. That means 37.7% of respondents said they feel the state is headed in the right direction. The last time that many respondents said the state was headed in the right direction was in the company's fall 2007 survey.
Looking to the year ahead, the survey projects that nearly half of Mainers feel their household economic situations will stay the same, while 27% feel their situations will worsen and 23% feel their situations will improve.
Broken out, the majority of those who feel their situations will get worse are Mainers over 55, the survey found. Among that group, 32% feel their household economic situations will get worse. That's compared with 26% between ages 35-54 and 16.9% between the ages 18-34.
Regarding top statewide priorities, over one-fourth of respondents felt jobs and unemployment were the most important issue facing the state, while another 17% said the economy in general is the top concern.
While that percentage is high, surveys in 2005 had over one-third of respondents saying jobs and employment were the top concern. By May of 2007, only 17.5% named that category as their top worry as more people began to respond that tax reform or relief was a top worry.
The most recent survey also polled Mainers on current political issues, like requiring background checks for gun buyers and how Mainers would likely vote in possible two-way and three-way gubernatorial races.
The survey, which based the demographic makeup of its latest survey on the 2010 census, has a 4.9% margin of error.
Read the rest of Pan Atlantic SMS Group's Omnibus poll.
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