Most Americans believe the nation’s greatest years are in the past, according to a survey released as America’s 250th anniversary approaches.
Some 59 percent of Americans said the country has already seen its best years, while 40 percent believe those years lie ahead, a Pew Research Center survey published Friday found. About 64 percent of Democrats said the nation’s best years were in the past, compared with 53 percent of Republicans, according to the poll.
The Pew Research Center asked Americans the same question in 2014, when former President Barack Obama was in office and Democrats held a majority in the Senate. According to that poll, 64 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats believed the country’s greatest years were behind them.
The group’s latest poll also found that 44 percent of Americans are feeling pessimistic about what the nation will be like in 50 years, while 28 percent are optimistic and 27 percent don’t lean either way. Fifty percent of Democrats reported feeling pessimistic, along with 39 percent of Republicans.
The data indicates Americans have started to feel more pessimistic in the last 10 years, Pew Director of Social Trends Research Kim Parker told Courthouse News.
“I would say that’s a significant shift towards a more negative orientation,” she added.
The survey of 3,560 U.S. adults was conducted in December, ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4.
Amid this growing pessimism, the U.S. has seen its migration numbers drop in recent months. In 2025, more people left the U.S. than moved in for the first time in decades. Brookings estimates U.S. net migration was between negative 295,000 and negative 10,000 last year — and 2026 is expected to follow a similar trend.
A number of factors appear to be driving this trend, including concerns about affordability and political issues, according to the consultancy firm Global Citizen Solutions.
“A convergence of political polarization, economic anxiety, tax policy, and a post-pandemic rethinking of what it means to belong to a place has produced something historically remarkable: a growing outward flow of American citizens actively seeking second citizenships, foreign residencies, a Plan B in case circumstances require a quick transition,” the firm wrote in a recent report.