Ask People to Imagine American Life in 2050, You'll Get Some Dreary Visions

Photo Credit: Jay Westcott/POLITICO

Whether they foresee runaway technology or runaway government, rampant poverty or vanishing morality, a majority of Americans predict a future worse than today.

Whites are particularly gloomy: Only 1 in 6 expects better times over the next four decades. Also notably pessimistic are middle-age and older people, those who earn midlevel incomes and Protestants, a new national poll finds.

“I really worry about my grandchildren, I do,” says 74-year-old Penny Trusty of Rockville, Md., a retired software designer and grandmother of five. “I worry about the lowering of morals and the corruption and the confusion that’s just raining down on them.”

Even groups with comparatively sunny outlooks — racial and ethnic minorities, the young and the nonreligious — are much more likely to say things will be the same or get worse than to predict a brighter future.