the poll also found a record number of voters now disapprove of the way president obama handling the economy. that s a 52%. america is pessimistic about their ability to improve their lives in the near future. 39% of working class adults say they are unlikely move up to middle class. retirement savings, rising cost of college and paying for groceries and utilities are top financial concerns for most americans. health care is their number one area of concern. i suspect amid all the talk about syria, chuck, that s what americans are focused on and still bad news for the white house. it is. the whole poll screams stagnation. look at that last question you put up and what worries them the most. job security was actually far down the list. but it was all the other costs, right. it s stagnation that you see throughout this poll. so you have a large majority of
now it s also to update them on syria. israel is deeply divided. some members of the cabinet in the military establishment were very upset when there was no military strike against assad. they wanted american action. now they are beginning to think wait a second if this does conclude in controlling the chemical weapons which are on our borders then maybe it could be a good thing. so now they are beginning to look at this russian-american initiative and say maybe this is a step forward after all. amazing how dynamics have changed. now israel is coming around. different point of view with us as well. so we ll see how it shakes out. andrea with kansas city john kerry in geneva. let s talk about these polls on the economy. nbc news and wall street journal finds 27% of americans think the economy is going to get better. about a quarter of all americans think it s going to get worse over the next year. 48% believe that the economy will stay the same.
working class and those who don t think they will move up the economic ladder in the next five years. you have a majority who think that things, you saw, that the economy will stay the same. this isn t a good economy. they are pessimistic. nobody thinks there s this sense okay it s not as bad as it was. we know the great recession was awful. this recovery is not, is not finished or certainly not been felt in middle america and that sort of, i guess, when you look at this, at the five year anniversary and we designed this survey to come out in the five year anniversary. when you look at the wall street recovery it s unbelievable and the disconnect opinion we talked about it a lot, the whole 1% business, but to see it, you kind of hope that the politicians see it s like it is really out there. it is but it is this sort of, people are starting to accept it and that s what s so depressing about it. they don t even think that
. well, the president keeps talking about a recovering economy, but according to a new poll released by bankrate.com, three quarters of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. they don t even have enough savings to cover six months of expenses. the same survey says that more than 27% have no savings at all. the president this week says, well, we got to work on climate change that most people believe will cost a lot of americans jobs. is this the right time to be costing americans jobs? is this the right time to be focusing on climate change i think is the question. that s a good question. sure. well, look. i think focusing on climate change is important, is going to be expensive. you know what will be more expense i ve? retrofitting everybody on the east coast with gills in 100 years so we can breathe underwater. at some point climate change is going to be amazingly expensive. i do think we have to address that at some point in terms of the economic figures you pointed out w
the white house in recent weeks. president obama is going on the offensive trying to steer the conversation back to the recovering economy. joining me now, msnbc contributor jimmy williams and msnbc analyst michael steele. with a welcome to both of you here. let s talk with you first, jimmy. the weekly address yesterday, the president was saying all about the economy. he s touting the gains, and the fact that it s coming back to life here. is that the right play? is that what he has to do? does he kind of ignore the controversies out there? no, he actually has to be presidential and address these, quote, scandals that we talked about. twitter just lit me up. just to be clear, liberals in america, i don t think there are actually scandals, however anyway. he s got a lot of great stuff to talk about with the economy. corporate profits, great. consumer spending, up. housing starts, 13% versus a year ago. housing, consumer spending are the two things that drive our