Sunny Mood at Midsummer: Americans take a brighter view of Reagan

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Americans take a brighter view of Reagan, the economy and the country

As the vacation season ripens to its fullest, Americans are heading to the beaches, tennis courts and backyard barbecue pits in their sunniest mood in nearly two years. The nation's problems, they think, look much less menacing, in particular, better than they did last winter and spring, largely because the recovery in the economy now seems to be genuine. Moreover, as the public's outlook on life in general brightens, so does its opinion of President Reagan, whose ratings are finally beginning to climb.

Those are the chief findings of a start-of-summer survey of American attitudes taken for TIME by Yankelovich, Skelly and White Inc.* There are puzzling crosscurrents, of the type that occur in every poll, but the upswing in optimism is unmistakable. In response to the broadest question, "How do you feel things are going in the country these days?" a solid majority of 57% answered either "very well" or "fairly well," vs. only 41% who replied "pretty badly" or "very badly." That marks a striking reversal from the last two polls: in March those who judged the nation to be heading downhill held the lead 54% to 45%, and last December the pessimists' edge was lopsided, 65% to 35%. Indeed, the current poll shows the first majority since September 1981 for those taking the upbeat view.

The state of the nation, of course, can improve markedly and still leave much to be desired. In fact, 58% of those questioned still rated it "not good," a response hard to reconcile with the general air of optimism. But that was the lowest proportion since November 1977, when it was 55% (for whatever reason, possibly simply high standards, "not good" has always held a majority in the TIME-Yankelovich polls). More significant perhaps, 48% now believe the country's problems to be "no worse than at other times," while 46% think that the U.S. "is in deep and serious trouble," the narrowest division in six years. Only six months earlier, in the December 1982 poll, the deep-trouble worriers were almost twice as numerous (62% of those polled) as the no-worse-than-usual group (33%).

The biggest reason for the turnaround in sentiment seems obvious. It is hardly surprising that public gloom was so widespread late last year; in the judgment of many economists, that was when the most painful recession since World War II hit bottom. Though many indexes of the economy began rising with the new year, their message at first was unclear. As recently as March, those polled by the Yankelovich firm split evenly, 49% to 49%, on whether a recovery had or had not begun. Now the doubt has been resolved. In the current poll, 59% said the economy really has started to improve, while only 38% believed the U.S. is still in "the throes of recession."