Gallup’s New Worker Survey Is One of the Bleakest Assessments of American Economic Confidence in a Decade

The “Help Wanted” sign in the window of a diner on a section of Route 20 outside Rockford, Illinois, was a permanent fixture until roughly two years ago. The sign was taken down sometime in the spring of 2024. It hasn’t risen again. The restaurant is not hiring. There is no firing in the diner. If you asked any of the four waitstaff members who have been there for years if now is a good time to look for a new job, they would probably laugh. When you read Gallup’s most recent numbers aloud, they sound like that laugh, somewhere between cynicism and tiredness.

The company’s Q4 2025 workforce survey, which was made public on March 24, is among the most depressing portraits of American working life that the pollster has created since starting this line of inquiry in 2009. According to Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index, just 46% of American workers are “thriving” today. Of them, 49% are “struggling.” Five percent are “suffering.” For the first time in the survey’s history, there are more struggling workers than prosperous ones. This is a significant turning point that will likely be mentioned in economic histories of this era for years to come.

To be honest, the job-market confidence figures are worse. According to Gallup, only 28% of workers believe that this is a “good time” to find a good job. It’s a bad one, according to 72% of respondents. You’re looking at a 42-point collapse in less than three years when you compare that to mid-2022, when 70% of workers were optimistic. This is the steepest decline Gallup has seen in the previous four years. It’s the kind of change that an economist would believe you were discussing a recession if you explained it to them without displaying the unemployment rate. However, at the time of the survey, the unemployment rate in the United States was close to 4%. The data keeps bringing this paradox to light.

In reality, what’s taking place is what economists have dubbed a “low-hire, low-fire” economy. Jobless claims have remained in the 220,000s for months, so businesses aren’t making significant layoffs, but they’re also not hiring. In November 2025, the hiring rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics fell to 3.2%, the lowest level since March 2013, when the nation was still recovering from the Great Recession. That comparison is truly frightening. The headline unemployment rate appears to be in good shape. The actual flow of people changing jobs appears to be an ongoing recovery.

The hardest hit are recent college graduates. The largest education-based disparity Gallup has found since it began asking the question in 2001 is that only 19% of workers with a four-year degree said it’s a good time to find a quality job, compared to 35% of workers without one. For about two years, white-collar employment in software, advertising, customer service, and professional services has been steadily declining. The 2024 class is still searching. Graduating into the same drought is the class of 2025. If you know anyone in those fields, you can’t help but notice that the conversation has changed from “applying aggressively” to “just keeping my head down at my current job.”

Federal employees are unique. Since 2022, their thriving rate has decreased by 12 percentage points, from 60% to 48%. This is the largest decline of any significant worker segment that Gallup monitors. In 2025, the government shutdown that lasted for a portion of the fall and the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce coincided with a sharp acceleration of the downdraft. Approximately 200,000 federal jobs were lost or put in jeopardy through 2025, according to data from Brookings, the Partnership for Public Service, and other trackers. Approximately 25,000 of those jobs were later rehired following different court decisions. No amount of agency-wide Pulse surveys can undo the damage that such whiplash causes to morale.

The generational perspective is equally striking. Compared to roughly 40% of workers 65 and older, only about 20% of workers between the ages of 18 and 34 believe it’s a good time to find a job. According to Gallup, the majority of Gen Z and Millennial employees are at least “watching for opportunities.” According to 75% of Baby Boomers, they don’t look at all. This suggests, at least to me, a workforce that is subtly splitting in two: younger workers trapped in unwarranted inertia, and older workers stuck in place and doing well. Global context is not beneficial. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026, there is an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity globally, with employee engagement at just 20% for the second year in a row.

As this develops, it appears that widespread disengagement will play a bigger role in the American labor story of 2026 than mass unemployment. At 91.2 in February, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence score is near pandemic-era lows. In contrast to the post-pandemic period, when job openings outnumbered the unemployed by millions, there are currently 7.4 million unemployed Americans chasing 6.9 million job openings.

When combined, the Gallup data paint a picture of a nation where people have jobs but don’t feel motivated or secure in them, and they don’t think they could find anything better if they tried. A GDP release typically doesn’t reflect that kind of collective sentiment. However, it manifests itself in politics, productivity, and the silent choices people make about whether to take risks, buy a home, or have children. In the end, no single number is the most depressing aspect of the survey. It’s the growing perception that none of them are nearing their lowest point.