Snapshot as of August 12, 2026
How is the country actually doing right now — and who's doing better than whom?
Economic indicators from BLS, BEA, the Federal Reserve, and the Census Bureau, layered against public opinion from Gallup, Pew, AP-NORC, YouGov, and Marquette Law School — cross-tabbed by political party, race, age, income, and state. Every figure below links to its original source.
The Pulse Score
One number for how the country's economy and public mood are doing right now, built from four weighted, publicly-documented pillars — never from presidential approval or partisan polling.
The Pulse Score over time
Quarterly since 1970, recalculated with the same 4-pillar formula — reweighted per quarter to use only the sub-metrics that actually existed at that time. Click any point on the line for that quarter's full breakdown.
National scoreboard
The headline indicators, all from the most recently published official release.
Geography: how it varies by state
Hard economic data has state-level detail; most opinion polling does not sample deeply enough per state to break out reliably, so the map layer is limited to economic indicators.
State rankings
Who's doing better, economically
Unemployment and income broken out by race/ethnicity, age, and sex — from the same BLS and Census releases as the national scoreboard.
Unemployment rate by race / ethnicity
Unemployment rate by age group
Unemployment rate by sex
Median family net worth by race
Beyond the headline number: who's stopped looking, who's underemployed, who's working multiple jobs
The official unemployment rate only counts people with no job who searched in the last 4 weeks. These measures capture the people it misses.
Presidential approval
How the country rates the administration overall, and how sharply that splits along party, race, gender, and education lines.
Where the country stands on the top issues
The most recently published reading on each hot-button issue from major national pollsters. Party splits are shown where available; gaps are labeled honestly rather than guessed.
Consumer sentiment
How Americans feel about their own financial situation and the economy's direction.
More granular breakdowns — no index numbers published yet
Methodology & sources
This dashboard aggregates only from the sources listed below, each pulled at the collection date shown at the top of the page. Economic figures come from official government releases (BLS, BEA, Census, Federal Reserve, Treasury). Opinion and sentiment figures come from major independent pollsters (Gallup, Pew Research, AP-NORC, The Economist/YouGov, Marquette Law School, Rasmussen Reports, Reuters/Ipsos) or transparent multi-pollster aggregates when a single fresh reading wasn't available. No figure here is estimated or generated — every value links to where it was published. Nothing on this page auto-updates; data stays fixed at the snapshot date until you click "Refresh data."