In a time of almost unprecedented partisanship, economic anxiety has emerged as the one issue that unites Americans across all walks of life.
Optimism and pessimism about the country’s future are sharply divided between rural and urban communities, survey data from the American Communities Project (ACP) shows.
Uniting the disparate communities is one common concern, soaring prices in grocery stores and affordability, which Trump has deemed a “con job”.
Despite Trump’s rhetoric about lawlessness in America’s major cities, residents in urban centers are less concerned about gun violence and crime than they have been in previous years, the survey finds.
And pessimism about the country’s future continues to be felt most heavily amongst urban dwellers, along with a growing dissatisfaction in predominantly Hispanic and African American communities.
Rural communities, in contrast, have a much more optimistic view of the future, with elderly voters in the Aging Farmlands enjoying a nearly 20 percent boost in satisfaction from a year ago, along with what ACP identifies as Evangelical Hubs and Rural Middle Americans.
“Concerns about inflation are across the board,” Dante Chinni, ACP founder and director, told the Associated Press. “One thing that truly unites the country is economic angst.”
Yet despite similar economic outlooks, what changes between communities is a belief in the administration’s ability to solve the cost-of-living crisis.
“I have anxiety every time I go to the grocery store,” said Kimmie Pace, an unemployed mother-of-four from rural Georgia. Yet she remains hopeful, telling ACP she trusts the president’s agenda.
“Trump’s in charge, and I trust him, even if we’re not seeing the benefits yet,” she said.
Her sentiment is echoed across Rural Middle America, where optimism about the future has surged despite little in the way of economic gains. Carl Gruber, who is disabled and relies on federal food aid, was taken aback by the skyrocketing cost of everyday household goods, but trusts Trump to bring the prices down.
“Right now, the president is trying to get companies who moved their businesses out of the country to move them back,” said Gruber, whose wife is also unable to work. “So, maybe we’ll start to see prices come down.”
The ACP categorizes the nation’s counties into 15 distinct community types based on demographics.
The rural optimism stands in sharp contrast to the mood in the nation’s big cities, where hopefulness declined from 55 percent last year to just 45 percent. For residents like Robert Engel, a 61-year-old federal worker in San Antonio, the concern is less for his own financial stability and more for the next generation.
“It’s not just the economy, but the state of democracy and polarization,” Engel said. “It’s a real worry. I try to be cautiously optimistic, but it’s very, very hard.”
Carmen Maldonado, a 61-year-old retired National Guardsman, said this fear is also active in Hispanic areas, where hope for the future of their community has plummeted.
“It’s not just hopelessness, but fear,” she said, noting that even her Puerto Rican neighbors, who are American citizens, are fearful of immigration raids.
“My hopelessness comes from the fact that we are a large part of what makes up the United States,” she said, “and sometimes I cry thinking about these families.”
Aside from economic anxiety, there is another issue that transcends demographic lines to unite America’s diverse communities—a growing dislike of AI. Survey data showed that just 26 percent of the public felt positively about AI’s future impact on their ability to earn a living, while 62 percent felt that artificial intelligence requires more government regulation.
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