America is becoming a nation of economic pessimists.
A new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll finds that the share of people who say they have a good chance of improving their standard of living fell to 25%, a record low in surveys dating to 1987. More than three-quarters said they lack confidence that life for the next generation will be better than their own, the poll found.
Nearly 70% of people said they believe the American dream—that if you work hard, you will get ahead—no longer holds true or never did, the highest level in nearly 15 years of surveys.
Republicans in the survey were less pessimistic than Democrats, reflecting the longstanding trend that the party holding the White House has a rosier view of the economy. An index that combined six poll questions found that 55% of Republicans, as well as 90% of Democrats, held a negative view of prospects for themselves and their children.
The discontent reaches across demographic lines. By large majorities, both women and men held a pessimistic view in the combined questions. So did both younger and older adults, those with and without a college degree and respondents with more than $100,000 in household income, as well as those with less…
The poll found a somewhat brightening view of the current economy. Some 44% rated the economy as excellent or good, up from 38% a year ago, though still a smaller share than the 56% who now view the economy as not good or poor.
Consumer sentiment dropped nearly 6% in August, after trending up in June and July, according to a closely watched index from the University of Michigan. Pessimism about the job market increased, with more people surveyed saying they expect their income to decline, according to polling done by think tank the Conference Board.
The middle class—generally considered to include households making roughly $53,000 to $161,000 a year—is playing an outsize role in that waning optimism. After months of tracking high-income earners’ increasing confidence about the economy, households making between $50,000 and $100,000 made an abrupt about-face in June. They now more closely resemble low-income earners’ gloomier views, according to surveys done by Morning Consult, a data-intelligence firm…
In early June, people with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 were feeling better about the economy than they had since before the pandemic, according to Morning Consult polling. Their optimism dropped in the following weeks, falling out of step with their wealthier counterparts, then flatlined in August. The gap in confidence between high- and low-earners is now the widest it has been in the seven years of tracking the data.
More U.S. consumers now say they’re dialing down spending than when inflation spiked in 2022. Over 70% of people surveyed from May to July plan to tighten their budgets for items with large price increases in the year ahead, according to the University of Michigan’s economic sentiment survey.
The United States is on the precipice of a historic, if dubious, achievement. If current trends hold, 2025 could be the first year on record in which the US population actually shrinks.
The math is straightforward. Population growth has two sources: natural increase (births minus deaths) and net immigration (arrivals minus departures). Last year, births outnumbered deaths by 519,000 people. That means any decline in net immigration in excess of half a million could push the U.S. into population decline. A recent analysis of Census data by the Pew Research Center found that between January and June, the US foreign-born population fell for the first time in decades by more than one million. While some economists have questioned the report, a separate analysis by the American Enterprise Institute predicted that net migration in 2025 could be as low as negative 525,000. In either case, annual population growth this year could easily turn negative.
This would be a historic first. For nearly 250 years, America has only known growth. According to our best estimates, the nation’s population expanded throughout the Civil War, despite the deaths of more than 700,000 Americans. It grew throughout the Spanish Flu1, both World Wars, and countless bloody entanglements with other countries. Even COVID, which killed more than a million Americans, didn’t reverse the trend. But Trump’s immigration crackdown may accomplish what no war, plague, or calamity has ever done.
The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two—five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets. In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet (and no, I promise you, I am not making this up.
When I first saw the cops, I actually laughed. I couldn't help myself. "Don't tell me! You've been sent by trans activists" The officers gave no reaction and this was the theme throughout most of the day. Among the rank-and-file, there was a sort of polite bafflement. Entirely professional and even kind, but most had absolutely no idea what any of this was about.
“Kind” because the officers saw how upset I was—when they began reading me my rights, the red mist descended and I came close to becoming one of those police body-cam videos where you can’t believe the perp isn’t just doing what he’s told—and they treated me gently after that. They even arranged for a van to meet me on the tarmac so I didn't have to be perp-walked through the airport like a terrorist. Small mercies.
At Heathrow police station, my belt, bag, and devices were confiscated. Then I was shown into a small green-tiled cell with a bunk, a silver toilet in the corner and a message from Crimestoppers on the ceiling next to a concave mirror that was presumably there to make you reflect on your life choices.
By some miracle—probably because I hadn't slept on the flight—I managed to doze off. After the premier economy seat in which I’d just spent ten hours, it was actually a relief to stretch out. That passed the time, though I kept waking up wondering if it was all actually happening.
Later, during the interview itself, the tone shifted. The officer conducting it asked about each of the terrible tweets in turn, with the sort of earnest intensity usually reserved for discussing something serious like… oh, I dunno—crime? I explained that the ‘punch’ tweet was a serious point made with a joke. Men who enter women’s spaces ARE abusers and they need to be challenged every time. The ‘punch in the bollocks’ bit was about the height difference between men and women, the bollocks being closer to punch level for a woman defending her rights and certainly not a call to violence. (Not one of my best as one of the female officers said “We’re not THAT small”).
He mentioned “trans people”. I asked him what he meant by the phrase. “People who feel their gender is different than what was assigned at birth.” I said “Assigned at birth? Our sex isn’t assigned.” He called it semantics, I told him he was using activist language. The damage Stonewall has done to the UK police force will take years to mend.
Eventually, a nurse came to check on me and found my blood pressure was over 200—stroke territory. The stress of being arrested for jokes was literally threatening my life! So I was escorted to A&E, where I write this now after spending about eight hours under observation.
The doctors suggested the high blood pressure was stress-related, combined with long-haul travel and lack of movement. I feel it may also have been a contributing factor that I have now spent eight years being targeted by trans activists working in tandem with police in a dedicated, persistent harassment campaign because I refuse to believe that lesbians have cocks.
“Sack of garbage,” “common thief,” “shameful jerk” – but a few of the choice words tennis fans had for the man who swiped an autographed hat from a child at the US Open over the weekend.
Sure, the alleged thief is no saint. But now that he’s reportedly been identified as a self-made millionaire, I’d rather just call him a shark.
The video of the courtside incident quickly went viral, showing a grown man snatch the hat away as Polish tennis star Kamil Majchrzak passed it up to a boy who pleaded in vain. The internet did as it wont, and identified the alleged thief as pavement plutocrat and fellow Pole, Piotr Szczerek.
What is this world coming to? A man can’t even steal from a child anymore without having his whole life dissected by an internet mob. But the more you dig into the details, it’s clear that Szczerek is actually kind of impressive.
Pavement is a big industry in Poland, apparently. I guess it makes sense – what else is there to do in the bleak decay of Eastern Europe besides endlessly mix concrete? With the keen instincts of a soon-to-be tycoon, Szczerek and his wife launched their paving company in the 90s and built an empire from the ground up. As CEO, he’s now deemed a “leader in the industry” by Polish media, and even funds youth tennis leagues.
Snatching trophies of conquest simply comes natural to a guy like this. It’s a courtside feeding frenzy, after all: athletes walk over amped up from battle, and fans clamor desperately for a hand shake, an autograph, a sweaty head band. In the heat of the moment, it’s survival of the fittest. And you can’t expect a shark to have a moral code.
A Great White doesn’t hang back to give lesser predators their fair chance; he swoops in for the kill. This cut throat ruthlessness is the hallmark of winners, conquerors and millionaire CEOs the world over, and the drive that let Szczerek succeed in business is the same one that kicked in courtside. Even in Gucci tennis shorts, killer instincts are not so easily suppressed.
But an alpha is nothing without his mate. Szczerek passed the hat to his wife, who dutifully shoved it into her designer handbag, as he went back for a second bite at an autographed water bottle. There’s a lesson for the ladies here, too: stand by your man.
Of course a guy like this isn’t going to just roll over under a little scrutiny. If you can find a way to capitalize off the fall of communism, you can survive a few internet trolls.
“Yes, I took it. Yes, I did it quickly. But as I’ve always said, life is first come, first served,” Szczerek said in defiance.
“It’s just a hat. If you were faster, you’d have it,” he added, while audaciously dangling the threat of legal action against the haters in his dm’s.
“To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.”
