Americans think their local economy is okay — and everywhere else is terrible

Pollsters have long puzzled over the fact that Americans dislike Congress as a whole — even though they tend to give their own representatives fairly high marks. A new poll from Gallup finds a similar paradox with respect to the economy.

“Forty-nine percent rate economic conditions in their local area as excellent or good,” Gallup’s Frank Newport notes, “but that drops to 25% when rating the U.S. economy, and to 13% when assessing the world as a whole.” Here’s the chart:

Newport notes that this dynamic often gets obscured by consumer confidence surveys, which are focused on the nation as a whole. He also notes, by the way, that Democrats are more likely to be upbeat about local economic conditions than Republicans (the situation was reversed when George W. Bush was president).