Survey: Two-thirds of Romanians believe the country is heading in the wrong way

More than two-thirds of Romanians believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, and over 40% think that the economy will perform poorly, according to a recent INSCOP survey.

More than half of respondents in the survey say 2024 will bring a worse standard of living than they had last year. Young people and those with very high income are the most optimistic categories regarding the evolution of their standard of living compared to last year, while AUR voters and people with very low incomes are the most pessimistic.

Almost a quarter (24.8%) of Romanians believe that things in Romania are heading in a good direction, while 69.7% are pessimistic about the future of the country, according to the survey cited by News.ro.

The most optimistic about the country's direction are voters of the PSD, PNL, and the United Right Alliance, as well as people with very high incomes, while AUR voters, grey-collar workers, and people with low incomes represent the population segments among which the highest percentages of pessimistic respondents are recorded.

Nearly 20% of respondents believe in a positive economic outlook for the coming period, a percentage that has increased compared to September 2023, when it was 15.6%. Meanwhile, 43.9% of respondents think that Romania's economy will perform poorly in the coming period (compared to 43.6% of respondents in September 2023), and almost a third believe that the economy will stagnate (compared to 32.5% in September 2023).

PSD voters, people with primary education, and people with high income represent the population categories among which the highest percentages of respondents believe that Romania's economy will experience a positive development in the coming period. On the other hand, AUR voters and those who have accounts on Instagram and TikTok are the most pessimistic population segments regarding the future development of the Romanian economy.

"Although there is a slight increase in the percentage of those who believe that the economy will have a positive development in the coming period, compared to September 2023, possibly due to a specific contextual optimism at the beginning of the year, the majority of Romanians still believe that the economy will perform poorly or stagnate, and two-thirds still think that things in Romania are going in the wrong direction. Just over a third of Romanians believe that in 2024 their own standard of living will be better than in 2023, while just over half believe that the standard of living will be worse this year compared to last year," said Remus Ştefureac, director of INSCOP Research.