The percentage of Americans classified as suffering rose to a record high in July, according to a Gallup survey released Monday.
The new poll found that 5.6 percent of Americans rate their lives poorly enough to be categorized as suffering.
Gallup measures the life quality index of Americans as “thriving,” “struggling” or “suffering” based on respondents who evaluate their current lives and their anticipated, future lives on a scale of zero to 10. A rate of four or lower is classified as suffering, while seven or higher is categorized as thriving.
The percentage of Americans who are classified as thriving dropped to 51.2 percent in July, according to the Gallup survey, a drop from 59 percent in November.
Americans are currently struggling with a declining economy, a 40-year high inflation rate and soaring gas prices, while the pandemic continues to disrupt lives and abortion has been severely restricted in about half of all states.
Americans who identify as independent are more likely to now be classified as suffering, according to the Gallup poll, with 6.2 percent reporting a poor life rating in July, up from 5 percent in January 2021.
About 5.4 percent of Republicans and Democrats are currently classified as suffering. For Republicans, that’s up from 3.3 percent in January 2021, while for Democrats, it’s up from 2.7 percent in that same month.
Gallup began asking the life quality question in 2008. That year, during the Great Recession, about 3.8 percent of Americans were categorized as suffering.
The lowest point on record was recorded in April 2020, when 2.4 percent of Americans were classified as suffering. That percentage has slowly climbed ever since, through peak waves of the pandemic, political disruption, inflation and states banning or restricting abortion procedures across the nation.
The new Gallup poll was conducted from July 26 to Aug. 2 among 3,649 U.S. adults.