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Upgrade to Premium Cost of living, higher pay remain top priorities for American workers Edwin Roman · Producer, Writer Sat, Nov 2, 2024, 12:07 PM 4 min read
A majority of American workers report being satisfied with their jobs, but the cost of living and higher pay are still top concerns, according to a survey conducted in collaboration with Echelon Insights for the Economic Innovation Group (EIG).
The survey, which included 1,516 respondents and was conducted from Sept. 6-11, found that if the average American worker could change one thing about their current job, it would overwhelmingly be more pay (55%). If they could change one thing about the economy, it would be the overall cost of living (45%).
“Workers are overwhelmingly satisfied with their careers, with their job security, even with the amount of money that they're earning at this stage of their career,” Economic Innovation Group CEO John Lettieri told Yahoo Finance. “But they're deeply unhappy about the rising costs of goods and services and housing that they need, and they're not very confident in the labor market itself as a place where they can go find another equivalently good job if they had to.”
Satisfied American workers
The EIG survey found that 71% of workers are either somewhat satisfied or very satisfied with their current job, while just 15% reported being dissatisfied. According to Lettieri, the findings show “real consistency there that goes back many decades.”
“When you look at other long-running surveys that have gone back 30, 40 years, American workers very consistently report a high level of satisfaction with their jobs,” he said. “It's somewhat counterintuitive … that workers are so consistently happy. So … I’m not very surprised that we see workers are happy right now.”
The quits rate is at its lowest level since 2020, with 3.1 million Americans voluntarily leaving their jobs in September. In October, the unemployment rate stood at 4.1%.
Lettieri described the current state of the economy as “worker-friendly,” largely due to rising wages and low unemployment.
New US citizens hold American flags during a special naturalization ceremony Monday on the Hollywood Sign Terrace at Griffith Observatory on Oct. 21, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) · Brian van der Brug via Getty Images
“I think they have a good reason to feel pretty solid about their current circumstances, that the pain of the pandemic is largely behind us even if it caused a major disruption while it was at its peak,” he said, “but that just brings us to this longer historical arc where workers tend to say they’re satisfied with their jobs, even in relatively weak economies.”
Still, higher pay is a top priority for these workers. Overall, wages have outpaced inflation since the start of the pandemic. These stats vary, though, when broken down by factors like household size or monthly budgets.
“You hear so much about access to childcare, better healthcare, better benefits,” Lettieri said. “Are these other things where they’re feeling the most friction, or if they could change something, would it just come down to pay? And the answer is really clear: Overwhelmingly, workers rank their top choice as ‘just pay me more.’ So this is like the Jerry Maguire finding here: ‘Just show me the money.’”
Financial stress is influencing voters
Anxiety about the overall cost of living is another concern. The EIG survey found that 24% of workers are most stressed by the costs of products and services, while 21% cited the cost of housing as their biggest financial stress.
Mortgage rates currently sit at 6.72%, with the median sale price of existing homes at $404,500 and median rent at $1,634. Notably, just 30% of Americans think it’s a good time to buy a house.
According to the EIG survey, Kamala Harris voters (24%) are more likely than Donald Trump voters (17%) to cite housing costs as a financial stressor.
“Harris voters are more likely to be in large urban environments where the cost of housing in many cases has been the most significant in terms of its rise in recent years,” Lettieri explained. “So we know that the cost of housing in cities like New York, San Francisco, or D.C. [are] a major concern for anyone who lives in those metro areas, and Harris voters are more likely to be concentrated in those areas.”
Overall, the survey found, workers are more likely to say the Democratic Party is better for their interests than the Republican Party. Specifically, 36% of voters without a college degree said the Democratic Party was better for their interests versus 33% who chose the Republican Party. Among college-educated voters, 44% said Democrats were better for workers than 29% who said Republicans.
Lettieri noted that non-college workers "make up a much more significant part" of Trump's voting base, which is why there may be such a disparity.
“This realignment that we're seeing broadly in politics features this competition now between the two parties, where they're much more openly at odds with each other about who's going to be the party of American workers, of the working class, and so that that is really the backdrop of the survey," he said.
Adriana Belmonte contributed to this post.
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