While they were standing in the voting booth, Americans may have thought they were choosing the lesser of two financial evils.
A recent study sponsored by the Denver-based National Endowment for Financial Education finds widespread skepticism about the financial effects of a Trump administration among U.S. adults.
Only 27 percent of the study’s respondents feel like their personal financial situation will improve during Trump’s presidency, compared with 19 percent who believed their financial situation would have improved if Hillary Clinton had emerged victorious in last week’s election.
Most Americans felt like their financial situations would remain the same or worsen. With a Trump administration in power, 37 percent of the respondents felt like their personal finances would remain the same, while 35 percent felt like their finances would worsen. Similarly, 46 percent of respondents thought that their finances would remain the same under a Clinton administration, while 34 percent felt like they would be worse off.
With Trump in power, the respondents listed health-care costs as their primary financial concern, followed by taxes, cost-of-living and retirement security.
Men and women also diverged in their opinions—in particular, men were more likely than women to feel like their finances would improve under the president-elect. Among men, 31 percent of the respondents felt like their financial situation would improve with Trump in the White House, compared with 23 percent of women. A plurality of women, 40 percent, felt like their finances would worsen during Trump’s presidency.
Yet women were no more positive about their prospects under Hillary Clinton. Just 19 percent of women thought their finances would improve if Clinton had won the election, compared with 20 percent of men.
For the study, 1,010 nationally representative interviews were conducted on November 9, 2016, among adults aged 18 and older.