Poll finds when was the greatest time to be American - Gen X and Elder Millennials rejoice!
According to the YouGov survey, the highest-ranked decades for overall quality of life in the U.S. were during the 1980s and the 1990s.
The poll broke up U.S. history into 16 periods — beginning way back during the British colonial era in the 1600s — and asked its 1,139 respondents to rank the periods from best time to be alive to the worst.
The survey found that 57 percent of respondents said the Reagan Era (1980-1991) was excellent or good in terms of quality of life, and thus it was viewed as the best time to be alive. The second best was the Clinton Era (1993-2001), with 55 percent of respondents saying that time was excellent or good.
The third spot went to the Postwar Baby Boom era of 1946-1964, with a 51 percent rating.
Just in case you aren't seeing the pattern: the largest population groups in the U.S. pick the eras that represent their childhoods — times when they had less to worry about and the world seemed more hopeful and less miserable — as their personal best times to be alive.
Millennials are currently the largest age demographic in the U.S. — especially if Gen X is lumped in with their younger counterparts — and span both the Reagan and Clinton years. Baby Boomers are the second largest.
Outside of the childhood eras of both of the largest generational groups in the U.S., the other 13 eras on the list received less than a 50 percent favorability rating.
Only 46 percent thought the Counterculture Era of the 1960s was the best time to be alive, and only 40 percent of respondents thought the Post-9/11 Era of 2001-2008 was the best time to be alive.
The Great Depression was near the very bottom of the list, with only 17 percent of respondents saying it was an excellent or good time to be alive, and the Civil War period of 1861-1865 came dead last, with only five percent of respondents giving it a good or excellent rating.
Some of the other eras included the Gilded Age from the 1870s to 1900, the Reconstruction Era from 1865 to 1877, World War II, and the Great Recession.
The present day also rated well when compared to the worst-rated ages in U.S. history. Thirty-two percent of respondents said living today was excellent or good, and another 29 percent said it was "fair" to be alive today.
Once the poll's respondents are broken down by party affiliation, it's fairly unsurprising how things shake out. Democrats ranked the Clinton Era the highest, with 75 percent saying it was good or excellent with only 41 percent of Republican respondents sharing that view.
Likewise, 82 percent of Republicans said the Reagan Era was excellent or good, and only 35 percent of Democrats agreed.
Democrats and Republicans had shared feelings about the Great Depression, with only three percent on each side saying it was a good or excellent time to be alive, and they were close on the Counterculture Era, with 44 percent of Democrats saying it was a good or excellent time, and 49 percent of Republicans sharing that sentiment.
Respondents were also asked to rank the eras based on their political stability. In that ranking, the Reagan Era again won out — despite much of it playing out during the Cold War and U.S. clandestine action throughout the global south — with 18 percent saying it was the most politically stable time. The Clinton Era came in second, with 14 percent saying it was the most politically stable time in the nation's history.
Thirty-one percent said the least politically stable time in U.S. history is the present, even somehow beating out the Civil War period when Americans were killing each other in pitched battles with cannons.
The survey has a four-point margin of error and was conducted between April 9 - 11, 2025. Respondents were selected from YouGov's 'opt-in panel.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
The results are in from BI's 'Gen Z stare' reader survey — here's what people said
In a BI reader survey, 59.3% of respondents said they had experienced the "Gen Z stare." 241 readers responded. 143 said they had experienced Gen Z's TikTok-famous expression. According to millennials on TikTok, Gen Z often stares back wide-eyed to request for small talk. We asked BI readers: Have you experienced the "Gen Z stare"? Well, the results are in — and the majority of respondents said they had. We heard from a lot of you, with 241 readers weighing in. 59.3% of respondents said that they had experienced the "Gen Z stare." That compared to 40.7% who said they hadn't. The TikTok-viral observation about Gen Z quickly ignited a debate on social media, with no shortage of opinions. Some have argued that it's simply the latest example of the generational blame game, like when millennials were shamed for their love of avocado toast. When we spoke with seven Gen Zers, it became clear there's disagreement even among the generation. Some BI readers submitted their own thoughts about the "Gen Z stare," ranging from justifications to complaints. "Gen Z is very creative and tech-savvy," wrote Lauren Prieto. "One downfall is that they expect things to go smoothly and are not as proactive as previous generations. I am a part of the latter half of Gen Z, but pre-COVID I was advocating for myself in college." Justin Scarborough wrote that Gen Z was "polite, thoughtful, and engaged," but that he felt they put up a "shy wall" others had to break through. Some applied their experience with the "Gen Z stare" to the workplace, such as Ashleigh Moten, who said she manages Gen Z employees. "I see a lack of social skills, mainly the ability to start a conversation first which is essential in sales," Moten wrote. "Not all, but many on the younger end of the generation have this trouble." Others tried to understand where the "Gen Z stare," if it is a real phenomena, might come from. Cole Bailey wrote that Gen Z is a "generation of rejection," from college applications to the job market, and that "they are told no 1,000 times before one yes." "Gen Z is the spiritual successor to Gen X, a Between Generation with plenty of reasons for dissociation from the toxic environment we were handed, that the more-active generations propped up," wrote Eric Wagner. "If the stare is real, it's perfectly valid." Read the original article on Business Insider Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
The real reason everyone's so mad over the Gen Z stare
According to many Zoomers, concerning reports of a 'Gen Z stare' may be overblown. If it exists, they say, it's simply a response to the idiocy of their elders. Somehow, though, the concept — recently articulated on TikTok — gained instant recognition from millennials, Gen X, and boomers, who describe it as a blank, if not worried, look as a response to a direct question or interaction. Sometimes, it can be a lack of any greeting or reply from Zoomers in customer service specifically. Further reports point to a potentially related trend, where the group born between 1997 and 2012 don't say hi when they pick up the phone. Any sweeping generational generalization — the millennial 'failure to launch,' the Gen X 'slacker' mentality, boomers ruining everything — has a way of galvanizing old, would-be foes and bringing them together for a universal tut-tut moment. Now, it's a new generation's turn in the barrel, and we're hearing about their lack of bar tabs, their surprising interest in religion, their tendency to fall for online scams, and their love of baggy pants. Few things unite people as easily as a common point of complaint and judgment. But the 'stare' dogpile is also a reflection of the social skills we value and how we learned to value them; concerns that go beyond eye contact and active listening. In examining our hangups and the backlash, it becomes clear that the Gen Z stare is actually as much about Zoomers as it is the people who are frustrated by them. Does the Gen Z stare exist? The most difficult thing about the Gen Z stare is finding Zoomers who will actually admit — on record — to doing it. In speaking to a few Gen Z people, the main response I got was that they didn't believe that they or any of their friends were guilty of committing the Gen Z stare. Sam Delgado, a freelance journalist and former Vox fellow, does not relate to giving what she understands to be 'deadpan stare during conversations.' 'I was a little confused at first because I hadn't heard of it before or didn't immediately understand,' Delgado says. 'And while my other Gen Z friends aren't as chatty as I am, I've never seen any of them do this stare.' Kat Swank, a young person born in 1997 — the Gen Z cutoff — who says she does not fix upon people with a lightless gaze, was also skeptical. 'My TikTok For You Page is certainly telling me that it's real,' Swank tells Vox. 'But I don't think I've ever really encountered it, though.' Obviously, asking people whether they do an embarrassing thing is not going to elicit a rush of admissions. Psychology experts I spoke to said that while there's obviously no peer-reviewed research on the origins of the stare or its intent, they believe that at least some Gen Z starers are unaware that they're doing it. There's also reason to believe that the way young people look at older people now has plenty in common with past generations. Michael Poulin, an associate psychology professor at the University at Buffalo researches how people respond to adversity, and says that he's seen 'tons' of Gen Z stares. He's very familiar with the vacant gaze and felt its heavy void first hand. But he raises the point that part of being a college professor is looking around the room into a sea of young adults who would rather be somewhere else. Since Poulin has been teaching, and perhaps since time immemorial, students, regardless of generation, have given him that blinkless gaze. Poulin, who says he's seen stares from millennial students in the past, raises the point that the Gen Z stare might not be specific to Gen Z but rather a manifestation of the tradition of older adults complaining about the newest, youngest adults. It's not unlike the way some of our parents told us to look people in the eye and respond to them in full sentences, or the way some of us were reminded not to slouch at the dinner table, or to greet people with firm handshakes. Clearly, even in the distant past, some of us weren't making sufficient eye contact, were being too curt, slumped and ruining our posture, and doling out flimsy shakes to adults around us. 'To some degree, it's a comforting myth that all of us who are adults — who've gotten beyond the teens and 20s — that we tell ourselves that we were surely better than that,' Poulin says, asserting that older adult complaining about Gen Z probably have a few interactions in their younger years that were also complained about. 'This isn't the first generation to fail' at behaving like a responsive adult. Still, Poulin says, 'I would be willing to speculate that it may be a little worse for Gen Z,' noting that complaining about Gen Z en masse on social media is a sort of new phenomenon. Bemoaning how annoying young people are used to be kept in smaller social circles like after church or at soccer practices or lunches, but now it's all online, documented and magnified with the possibility of going viral. That's probably an issue millennials, at least, can relate to. The Gen Z stare isn't totally made up One of the reasons why Gen Z might not be totally aware of their stare might be the same reason older generations are so sensitive to it: an unavoidable difference in number and types of human interactions. Older adults have years or even decades of social experiences, most of which notably came before the pandemic lockdowns cut us off from one another and changed how we interact. Many also remember a pre-internet age of interaction, another sea change in the way that people relate to one another. For millennials and older, having learned the social skills to navigate a wider variety of in-person dealings, it can feel abrupt, even jarring, to encounter someone without them. While it's true that possibly every generation possesses social behavior that, in some way or another, irked previous ones, there may be factors at play as to why Gen Z's has manifested itself in a vacant glance. It all comes back to those two big shifts: the internet and the pandemic. 'It's sort of almost as though they're looking at me as though they're watching a TV show,' says Tara Well, a professor at Barnard College. Well's research is primarily in social perception, cognition, and self-awareness. Like Poulin, she has seen the Gen Z stare coming from some of her students. If your social interactions are largely dependent on scrolling through an endless amount of faces or staring into a lens, it might affect the way you interact with humans face-to-face. Well explained to me that the stare has made her think about the idea of 'self-objectification' a concept in psychology where people see themselves as an object or solely by their physical appearances, and begin to see other people as objects and images. 'We don't see them as dynamic people who are interacting with us, who are full of thoughts and emotions and living, breathing people,' Well tells Vox. 'If you see people as just ideas or images, you look at them like you're paging through an old magazine or scrolling on your phone.' It's not difficult to see a connection between social media and self-objectification. If your social interactions are largely dependent on scrolling through an endless amount of faces or staring into a lens, it might affect the way you interact with humans face-to-face. On social media everyone just bleeds into an endless swipe if they haven't captured your attention. On top of that, Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with fully built out iterations of Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms. They also have largely experienced so many customer-facing interactions — ordering a pizza, speaking to customer service rep, buying movie tickets — as automated. Of course, technological developments weren't the only thing happening during Gen Zers' time in high school and college. Many were also navigating those crucial years for social development during the pandemic, when life and school was shut down and held virtually. Swank, the millennial-Gen Z cusper, said that during her high school years, she had full access to Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram ('the old Instagram where you're putting the worst photo you've ever seen of yourself with a sepia filter'). At the time, she didn't yet have TikTok and those social media platforms hadn't unspooled their now-sophisticated algorithms into the apps. But her younger peers did. As a zillennial, she suspects she avoided the worst: access to TikTok combined with the pandemic. All that and 'your social life is all fully all online? I can only kind of imagine, like, where your social skills kind of go from there,' Swank says. 'Online, you can just stop engaging with someone, and you don't need to talk to them — I can totally see that bleeding into real life.' While many of us had our social lives affected by lockdowns (and all have access to social media), Gen Z is the only generation who didn't get to experience what adult social life felt like before it. Why the Gen Z stare is so off-putting Part of what Well studies is how humans react to each other. She looks into the small things, like how we modulate our voice when we talk to someone or how we react to small cues — the beginning of a smile, the small raise of an eyebrow, the end of a laugh, etc. These details help us decipher an interaction, to keep a good conversation going or end one that's run its course. The Gen Z stare seems like the antithesis to these things. The person giving the stare may not know or want to reciprocate these cues; they may not have the practice or knowledge to help their conversational partner. At the same time, the person they're staring at has nothing to work with. That may explain why people may find the stare so irksome, regardless of whether or not the starer's intention. 'People interpret it as social rejection,' Poulin, the professor at Buffalo, told me. 'There is nothing that, as social beings, humans hate more. There's nothing that stings more than rejection.' If there's any solace for those feeling the frustration, or for Gen Z tired out of the discourse, it's that there that younger generation will likely give up its signature stare. 'Gen Z will grow out of it because people are going to keep having in person interactions,' Poulin says, noting that it might not be at the same rate as older generations who grew up with face-to-face interactions. 'They will have more in person interactions, and they will experience consequences of engaging versus not engaging.' When they do, older generations will probably find something else to complain about. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Millennials Are Sharing Things They Think Will "Die" With The Older Generations, And Fine China Is Definitely On This List
Every generation brings with it its own unique cultural contributions that help shape society, even if they don't last forever. I mean, Duck Lips™ might be dated now, but they had a deathgrip on an entire generation before Gen Z rightfully rejected them (RIP). Following this train of thought, Reddit user Soup_stew_supremacy recently posed this question to the r/Millennials subreddit: "There is always discourse about Millennials 'killing' things (Applebees, newspapers, church, etc.). What are some things you think will 'die' once the older generations go?" The answers ranged from obvious to "Oh wow, I hadn't even considered a world in which THAT would be gone." Here's what people had to say: 1."Checks. As an adult, I've never used a check. The closest I've gotten is a money order back in my early 20s for a rental deposit on a house." —u/PermissionOaks Related: 2."Clubs. Not nightclubs, but community groups like the Rotary or Masons. I'd love to be involved in such a thing, but the current members are so damn hostile to any young person who shows up while also bitching about how young people don't get involved." —u/mlo9109 3."Hopefully fax machines. Scan that shit and send it as a PDF." —u/Ever_More_Art 4."'Company rooms' or formal living rooms — those rooms in your grandparents' houses that are kept pristine and saved for important guests or special events only. 'Don't go in there and mess things up!' I always thought it was SO WEIRD to have an entire room you only use a few times a year?!" —u/modernrocker 5."Broadcast TV. Everything will eventually roll over to streaming, no more OTA signal." —u/OwnConversation1010 6."All the schools. We are already closing schools in my area due to declining enrollment. A lot of services for children are contracting too. I don't think we will ever see birthrates like they were previously. Same with colleges. Our local community college just closed due to lack of enrollment." —u/Soup_stew_supremacy Related: 7."Funerals — how am I going to handle planning an event like this??? Also, I don't want one for myself and wouldn't want my husband or kids to have to deal with any of that." —u/HogBodyOdyOdyOdy "My grandpa passed recently in his 90s. His boomer kids skipped the funeral and did a siblings get-together to spread the ashes instead." —u/Pure-Introduction493 "I'm already seeing a huge decline in this. Since 2020, out of everyone I've known who's died, only two have had funerals. These have been a rough few years, too. I've known about 20 people who've died. On the one hand, I understand the cost and stuff being a hindrance. On the other hand, not having a funeral or any sort of celebration of life/gathering kind of takes away a piece of the closure you need." —u/NoTrashInMyTrailer 8."The china industry. I don't know anyone under the age of 70 with fancy plates they keep locked up in a cupboard they bought just to house those plates they never eat off. A hutch, it might be called?" —u/TheAlphaKiller17 9."All the churches. I don't think we will ever fully stop going to church as a society, but there are so many churches (especially in rural areas) that barely have a patronage under the age of 50. There are also so many denominations that are shrinking rapidly, including Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, and Jehovah's Witnesses, to name a few." —u/Soup_stew_supremacy 10."Can we kill the obligation to verbally acknowledge when someone has sneezed? Why? Why are you blessing me? I just had a reaction to some dust. It's not a big deal. Just ignore it and move on. I don't need your blessings." —u/PintsOfGuinness_ 11."Timeshares. What's really wild is that they have been understood to be predatory and a scam for at least 50 years now. There are pop culture references to that going back to the early '70s, at least. Timeshares and cigarettes are still somehow catching new victims even though literal children know exactly what is wrong with them." —u/MarginalOmnivore Related: 12."I wonder how much longer we will still have in-person banks, or at least see them dramatically reduce personnel since most of us use online banking." —u/dude_named_will 13."Never apologizing to your children." —u/VFTM "Emotionally immature parents. The world will be a better place when families can handle disagreements or harm without rug sweeping or boundary-pushing. Personally, I look forward to never seeing another boomer cry on a video about their kids not talking to them anymore." —u/historyosilence 14."'Jokes' about hating your spouse. And good riddance." –u/Glozboy 15."Small museums. There's a small one in my town about local history, and there are no members under 50, and most are over 60. Last I knew, they were down to about 15 members because several have passed away over the last couple of years." —u/Mlady_gemstone 16."'Classic' car shows. Although I do know of younger people into classic or specialty cars, I have attended these car shows with my parents, and the crowd is mostly older people (especially for 'classic' cars from the 50s, 60s, and 70s). I think most of us don't have the money for a new car, much less an expensive hobby car." —u/Soup_stew_supremacy 17."Rural hospitals. It's a financial thing. Rural hospitals already find it very difficult to stay open. Factor in decreased Medicaid funding, and it's guaranteed to happen." –u/lysistrata3000 Related: 18."Dryer sheets and plastic flowers. Good riddance." —u/AttentionOutside308 "Dryer sheets are full of chemicals and microplastics. The residue that they leave on your laundry is actually also quite bad for them, especially towels." —u/Ill-Country368 19."Cards. For birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc. Other than Christmas cards, I don't know anyone under 50 who sends cards. Though thank you cards should still be a thing for major events like weddings and baby showers." —u/PinkHamster08 "They're like eight bucks now and for what? Why? I only buy cards for my parents. Once they're gone, that's it for cards." —u/what-name-is-it 20."I hope being forced to keep a grass lawn will go away. Too many cities have laws about keeping your lawn under 6 inches or 4 inches or whatever. It's a barrier for people who want to segue their property to a more natural, lower maintenance form." —u/BlueEyedSpiceJunkie "It's also not environmentally friendly." —u/Ever_More_Art 21."Cooking and housekeeping knowledge. The older generations were trained in household management, cooking, and cleaning by the generation that went through the Great Depression. Some of them still have a lot of institutional knowledge and skills from that time. If you still can, call your grandma and ask her how she makes those amazing dinner rolls!" —u/Soup_stew_supremacy 22."Excessive holiday decor/gift giving. I really hope that dies soon. I help people clean out their junk, and so much of it is brand-new 'gifts' that were never even opened. I really believe people would be happy without all the 'stuff.'" —u/Pearl-2017 23."The housing shortage. I know that houses are scarce and expensive now, but as the population declines, we may end up with more houses than people to buy them at some point. I see this as a good thing for future generations (this will more than likely happen to our kids or grandkids, or even great-grandkids, not to us)." —u/Soup_stew_supremacy What do you think? Are there any things you think should be added to this list? Let me know in the comments! Note: Some answers are edited for length and/or clarity. Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Solve the daily Crossword
