2023 poll: What is America’s biggest problem right now?
FILE - North Facade of the White House. (Getty Images)
Government, inflation and immigration. These are the top issues many Americans believe are the United States’ biggest problems for 2023.
Gallup conducted a poll between Jan. 2 and Jan. 22 asking Americans what they believe is the most important problem facing this country today.
The poll ranked the most important U.S. problems in this order:
- Government/poor leadership: 21%
- Inflation: 15%
- Immigration: 11%
- Economy in general: 10%
- Unifying the country: 6%
- Race relations/racism: 5%
- Poverty/hunger/homelessness: 5%
- Crime/violence: 4%
- Ethical/moral family decline: 4%
What are Americans saying?
FILE - Members of the U.S. House of Representatives gather in the U.S. House chamber as the House meets to elect a speaker in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Jan. 6, 2023. (Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Government/poor leadership kept its first place spot since Gallup’s Nov. 2022 poll, and actually increased five points since then with 21% of Americans agreeing this is the country’s biggest problem.
Of the 21% who said the U.S. has poor government/leadership, 24% were Republicans and Republican-leaning and 18% were Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, Gallup noted.
Inflation came in at 15%, which is one point less than Nov. 2022, and immigration jumped up three points, coming in at 11%.
The economy fell six points since Nov. 2022 to 10% which is the lowest it has been in years, according to Gallup.
More than four in five Americans believe the U.S. economic conditions are fair (38%) or poor (45%) with a smaller group ranking it as excellent (2%) or good (15%).
FILE - Now Hiring banner outside Post Office, Queens, New York. ( Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
"Furthermore, 72% of Americans say the economy is getting worse, 22% say it is improving, and 4% think it is staying the same," Gallup said.
And despite the gloomy outlook on the economy in general, Americans are more optimistic when it comes to the job market. Sixty-four percent of Americans said right now was a great time to find a quality job in the U.S.
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Republicans vs. Democrats
While most Americans agree on the top three biggest problems, one of the most obvious differences in the poll was the ranking of immigration as a problem in the U.S.
While Democrats did rank it as a problem, they didn’t rank it nearly as high as Republicans.
Immigration came in at 18% for Republicans while Democrats only polled at 5%.
Another notable difference was where the environment and wealth gap ranked between Republicans and Democrats.
For both the environment and wealth gap, both came in at 0% for Republicans.
Conversely, Democrats polled at 6% and 4% for the environment and the wealth gap, respectively.
Race relations polled at 9% for Democrats, ranking it the same as the economy in general, while on the other side of the aisle, race relations polled at 2%.
This story was reported from Los Angeles.