Goodbye, Good Riddance to 2020

For most Americans, New Year’s Day is just another holiday, but they welcome it this year because it will put the dreadful 2020 behind them.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone and online survey finds that 59% of American Adults consider 2020 a poor year, by far the worst rating a year has received in over a decade of regular polling. By comparison, a previous high of 38% rated 2008 as a poor year following the Wall Street meltdown. Only 18% felt that way about 2019.

Still, five percent (5%) view 2020 as one of the best years ever. Fourteen percent (14%) more rate it as a good or excellent year. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Interestingly, with the coronavirus pandemic several weeks away, 72% predicted in late December of last year that 2020 would be at a minimum a good year. That was the highest level of optimism ever.

But Americans are guardedly hopeful about the year ahead. Just seven percent (7%) expect 2021 to be one of the best years ever, but 37% forecast it will be a good or excellent one. Twenty percent (20%) predict 2021 will be another poor year.

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The survey of 790 American Adults was conducted December 30, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Concern about the coronavirus remains high among Americans, and most suspect that we will be wearing masks and living in lockdown for at least the next six months.

Sixteen percent (16%) of Americans consider New Year’s Day one of our nation’s most important holidays. Twenty-six percent (26%) rate it as one of the least important, while 52% place it somewhere in between the two.

The older the adult, the more critical they are of 2020 and the more pessimistic they are about 2021.

However, the majority of Americans in nearly all demographic categories have a negative view of 2020.

Twenty-two percent (22%) of investors look back on 2020 positively, compared to 16% of non-investors. The two groups are almost equally hopeful about the year ahead.

Americans are cautious about the new anti-coronavirus vaccine and slightly more reluctant to get one. Most also aren’t convinced that the vaccine will be administered fairly.

Economic confidence has declined since Election Day, with the Rasmussen Reports Economic Index dropping 12 points from November to December.

Forty-one percent (41%) of Likely U.S. Voters said the country was headed in the right direction just before Election Day. Now just 29% feel the country is headed the right way.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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