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Resilient American Values

Optimism in an Era of Growing Inequality and Economic Difficulty

<p>Children and adults march in the Barnstable Fourth of July parade, in Barnstable Village, one of America&#8217;s oldest settled towns founded in 1639 on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on July 4, 2011.</p>
Children and adults march in the Barnstable Fourth of July parade, in Barnstable Village, one of America’s oldest settled towns founded in 1639 on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on July 4, 2011. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

BY

  • Andrew Kohut
    Director, Pew Global Attitudes Project
  • Michael Dimock
    Director, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Overview

Despite an extended period of economic difficulty, Pew Research Center pollsters Andrew Kohut and Michael Dimock show that Americans‘ core values and beliefs about economic opportunity, and the nation’s economic outlook, remain largely optimistic and unchanged. There is also little evidence that economic class is becoming a greater factor in shaping American values than in the past. Americans are certain that the nation can solve its problems, that hard work ultimately pays off, and that income divides are an acceptable part of a healthy economy. But they increasingly see a lack of fairness in public policies that are failing to promote economic opportunity.

See CFR Senior Fellow and Renewing America Director Edward Alden’s accompanying blog post here.t