Updated March 24, 2026, 5:16 p.m. ET
America is becoming a nation of pessimistic workers.
For the first time in Gallup’s tracking, more workers have a negative view of their prospects. Even as many measures show that the economy is relatively robust, more workers report struggling than thriving, according to a Gallup survey of U.S. workers conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov. 13.
That’s a stunning reversal from 2022 and 2023, when more than half of employees had a rosier outlook.
For its Life Evaluation Index, Gallup asked people to picture a ladder, with the lowest rung representing the worst possible life and the highest rung representing the best possible life. Those rungs are numbered 0 to 10.
Gallup classified people who rate their current life a 7 or higher and their anticipated life in five years an 8 or higher as thriving, according to Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist for workplace management and well-being. Those who rate their current and anticipated life a 4 or lower are classified as suffering.
“Those who are neither suffering nor thriving are considered struggling,” he said.
What’s behind the gloomy mindset?
America’s unemployment rate may be low, but so is job growth. And that sluggish pace of hiring – the slowest labor market in years – has left many workers feeling out of sorts.
Dour sentiment has risen as job market confidence has sunk to near historic lows, with just 28% of workers saying now is a good time to find a good job, down from nearly 70% in mid-2022, Gallup found. The survey called the 42-point decline “the largest collapse in job market confidence Gallup has recorded in the past four years.”
Restless workers can’t find a comparable role with the same pay and benefits, making them feel stuck, Harter said.
About 30% of all workers agreed or strongly agreed that they “feel stuck” in their current job. A larger share (43%) reported they remain in their current role primarily because leaving would be too difficult or costly.
People who have jobs are holding onto them even if they don’t want them, while those who want jobs are having trouble finding work.
“Employees have less choice to get what they would define as quality jobs. Of those who are applying, very few are getting opportunities,” Harter told USA TODAY.
Those stark market conditions show few signs of easing. Social media is rife with frustrated job seekers submitting hundreds of applications with no callbacks and overqualified candidates desperately throwing resumes at entry-level positions.
“The job market is really tough,” one job seeker commented on LinkedIn. “I’ve applied to so many jobs and nothing. I don’t remember it being this hard to find a job.”
“What makes this moment distinct is not just the scale of discontent but the conditions that surround it,” Gallup said. “Workers who want to leave largely cannot – constrained by economics, a cooling labor market, and the difficulty of finding anything comparable to what they have.”
Desperately seeking a new job
Antsy job seekers have not been deterred. “Turnover intent” remains at its highest level since Gallup began tracking it in 2015.
More than half of workers are actively hunting for a new job, and 40% are on the lookout for better opportunities, Gallup found. Fewer than half of the U.S. workforce said they were not looking at all.
But with scarce opportunities, nearly half of active job seekers say it has been a negative experience. A little more than a quarter said they had a positive job search experience.
More than half of job seekers who applied for at least one job in the past 30 days reported not landing a single interview.
Which workers are the most pessimistic?
Federal workers, in particular, are experiencing a reversal of fortune.
In 2022, federal workers were significantly more likely than the average U.S. worker to be thriving – four points above state and local government workers and six points above the average for American workers, according to Gallup.
By 2025, federal workers’ thriving rate fell 12 points to an average of 48%, far outpacing the sharp declines in state and local government workers and the overall worker average.
“All major segments of the U.S. workforce experienced a worsening outlook on their lives since 2022; however, federal government employees stand out for the severity and speed of their decline,” Gallup said.
Job angst for college-educated workers
For the first time in the past three years, college-educated workers are the least optimistic about the job market – likely a reflection of slowed hiring in white-collar fields and layoffs in professional jobs, according to Gallup.
That increased pessimism is a new phenomenon. Up until 2024, workers with undergraduate or more advanced college degrees had been slightly more optimistic about the job market, Gallup found. Just 19% of college-educated workers say now is a good time to find a good job, far less than the 35% of workers without a college degree.
Younger workers today are also more pessimistic about the job market than older workers.
Want happy workers? Show them the money
The top cited reason for job hunting was pay or benefits among the 69% of workers looking for something better, and 53% of dissatisfied workers, Gallup found.
More opportunities to grow and advance were the second most-cited reason, while more than a quarter of respondents blamed their wandering eyes on leadership or management.
Overall wage growth has been slowing for years – a knock-on effect from the tighter job market.
The average employer planned to grant pay increases of 3.5% in 2026, according to an October survey by human resources firm Mercer – a pay bump that barely keeps up with inflation.
For years, job hoppers could finagle higher pay in new roles. But that strategy has been losing steam for a while. And with fewer job openings come fewer opportunities to switch jobs.
Only 56% of workers negotiated higher pay in new roles, down from 70% in 2023, according to ZipRecruiter. What’s more, a quarter of people who recently landed a new job took a pay cut, and an additional 16% got the same pay. For many who accepted lower pay, unemployment drove the decision.