Poll: Americans increasingly satisfied with military, security, economy

Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Americans' satisfaction with military strength, security from terrorism and the state of the economy has increased in 2018, a Gallup poll released Monday indicates.

Gallup's Mood of the Nation survey shows the changes in satisfaction on certain issues from the end of Barack Obama's presidency in early 2017 to before President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Military strength, security from terrorism and the state of the economy saw the greatest improvement in approval rating -- each rising between 12 percent and 13 percent -- and had the highest satisfaction ratings among the 21 topics listed on the poll.

Approval of the nation's military strength and preparedness ranked the highest at 78 percent, up from 66 percent in 2017. Approval of the nation's security from terrorism was second, rising from 50 percent to 63 percent.

Satisfaction with the economy rose from 46 percent in 2017 to 58 percent. Approval of the position of women also was 58 percent, but decreased from 72 percent in 2008, when data were last collected.

The poll showed that satisfaction with the nation's efforts to deal with poverty and homelessness, the availability of affordable healthcare, and the role the United States plays in world affairs were among the lowest.

Partisan trends impacted changes in some issues as Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were more satisfied with almost every issue than their Democratic counterparts.

The parties differed most on the subject of the U.S. economy as 57 percent of Republicans said they were more satisfied in 2018 while 14 percent of Democrats were less satisfied.

Divides between the parties generally canceled out changes on most issues such as the nation's energy policy which saw a 22 percent drop in satisfaction by Democrats and 23 percent increase for Republicans.

Democrats expressed increased satisfaction with the Social Security and Medicare systems, the state of race relations, and the nation's security from terrorism.

The poll was conducted between Jan. 2 and Jan. 7 and included interviews of 1,024 adults aged 18 and older.

There was a 4 percent margin of error for the total sample of respondents.