Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/americans-grim-on-economy-split-on-presidential-race Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript A Pew Research Center poll finds that Americans have a strongly negative view of the economy, are closely split over support for presidential candidates and that the controversial remarks of Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, have not hurt the candidate's campaign. Pollster Andy Kohut explains the numbers. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, for a breakdown of what voters are saying about the economy and other matters, we turn to Andrew Kohut. He's president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.Andy, good to see you again. ANDREW KOHUT, President, Pew Research Center: Happy to be here, Judy. JUDY WOODRUFF: Let's start by talking about what you found in terms of what people think about the overall economy compared to the last downturn? ANDREW KOHUT: Well, it's not a pretty story. Every month — January, February, and March — we get a more negative reading on the national economy. Only 11 percent are telling us in the recent poll that the national economy is either excellent or good. We have to go back all the way to the recession of the mid-'90s to get such a negative appraisal from the American public. JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, we have some graphics we want to share with our audience. And I'm going to let you talk us through these. First off, you asked people about their own personal finances. ANDREW KOHUT: Yes, that's the good news. You can see 47 percent say their own personal finances are excellent or good; that's a long cry from 11 percent. And those numbers have not been moving. So people are very negative about — worried about what they see on the national economy, but it really hasn't come home.However, the consequence of this view, even though it's not a personal one, is most people think we're in recession. So that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, you also asked people, what is their main, their chief economic concern? ANDREW KOHUT: It's pretty lopsided, as that chart shows. It's prices. It's inflation, 49 percent rising prices, and 20 percent jobs. Relatively few are talking about the financial markets.Unless you talk to people who earn more than $100,000 a year, you don't get a registration very much on anything other than rising prices, fuel, food, that sort of thing. JUDY WOODRUFF: So it's inflation that remains what people — the things that they buy. ANDREW KOHUT: It's inflation. Sure, absolutely.