LANSING – As the national and state economy began to sputter in spring, so did the optimism Michigan residents showed a few months earlier, according to the latest results from the State of the State Survey conducted by the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University.

In winter, 60 percent of those surveyed thought they would be better off a year from now. In the spring survey, that number fell dramatically to 47 percent.

The survey also showed that the approval ratings for Governor Rick Snyder fell significantly from the first assessment of his performance in the winter. The results showed, however, he had some of his biggest support from the metro Detroit region and among African-Americans.

The survey also showed support for President Barack Obama had stabilized over the last several months. The survey was conducted from May 13 (shortly after Mr. Obama announced that Al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in a raid by U.S. forces) through July 7 (when the nation began to be transfixed by the debate over raising the debt ceiling).

The survey, the latest iteration of the quarterly survey conducted by IPPSR since the early 1990s, was taken of 947 respondents, with an error rate of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

Optimism by respondents that things would be better a year from now had been growing in survey responses since 2006, even through some of the worst times in the economic recession of 2008 and 2009, to hit a point this past winter where 60 percent said they thought they would be better off a year from now. It was the highest positive attitude since 2004.

But in the latest survey that optimism had fallen to 47.3 percent, the same level it had been in 2008 and early 2009.

Meanwhile, those who said they would be worse off a year from now rose to 32 percent from the 23 percent where it stood in winter.

The survey was taken at a time when national and state unemployment increased after having fallen steadily for months, when economists worried the nation could fall into a double-dip recession, and when Congress and Obama struggled to reach agreement on increasing the nation’s debt ceiling.

In similar questions, the number of respondents who said they were better off today than they had been a year ago fell to 28.6 percent in the latest survey compared to 30 percent in the winter survey. Those who said they were worse off grew to 46.3 percent from 43.9 percent in the previous survey.

And the number of people who said their financial situation was good or excellent in the last year fell to 46.7 percent from 49.1 percent in the previous survey.

The survey was also taken after Snyder had successfully shepherded his tax proposals, which include taxing pensions, and controversial legislation allowing greater powers for emergency financial managers, which could help explain the big drop in his job approval ratings.

Of those surveyed, just 31.5 percent thought he was doing a good or excellent job, while in the winter survey, 44.5 percent thought Snyder was doing a good or excellent job.

On a regional basis, Snyder got higher marks from the Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, where 39.1 percent thought the governor was doing a good or excellent job. He got his lowest approval from the Lansing area, hurt possibly by the reactions of state workers worried about their jobs, with just 22 percent of capital area respondents saying he was doing a good job.

But Snyder got his biggest approvals from black respondents, of whom 44.2 percent said he was doing a good or excellent job, while just 31.8 percent of white respondents thought the same. Snyder also did slightly better with women, of whom 32.9 percent gave him good ratings. In contrast, just 30.1 percent of men gave him a good rating.

Obama fared better, with 44.5 percent of those polled giving him good or excellent job ratings. That was the same percentage who gave him good or excellent ratings in the winter survey.

That approval rating was up significantly from the 32.7 percent approval rating Obama got from respondents in the winter of 2010.

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