For many Americans, economic insecurity has become a defining feature of everyday life. Findings from PRRI’s 2026 American Values Survey show that about seven in ten Americans (69%) believe the economy is rigged against working Americans to benefit the rich and powerful. Majorities also support policies aimed at addressing economic hardship, including raising taxes on wealthy people and corporations (66%), guaranteeing affordable health insurance and childcare (66%), and guaranteeing a minimum income (60%). Yet just 41% of Americans agree that capitalism is no longer working and that the country should consider adopting some aspects of socialism. This Spotlight Analysis examines which Americans are most likely to embrace economic populist ideas and how economic populism varies by perceptions of the national and personal economy and concerns about financial security.

PRRI developed a comprehensive scale of economic populism by combining responses to these five questions using an additive scale and recalibrating the scores to values from 0 (low) to 1 (high).1 Each respondent is given a composite score based on their answers, with higher scores representing stronger support for economic populism and lower scores representing stronger opposition. Analysis of this scale shows that 29% of Americans score high on the economic populism scale, 34% fall in the middle, and 30% score low on the scale. 

While a Slight Majority of Democrats Have High Scores on the Economic Populism Scale, Six in Ten Republicans Have Low Scores

Economic populism differs across partisans. A majority of Democrats (53%) score high on the economic populism scale, compared with about one-quarter of independents (27%) and just 8% of Republicans. By contrast, six in ten Republicans (59%) score low on economic populism, compared with 28% of independents and just 9% of Democrats. About four in ten independents (39%) fall into the middle category. 

Support for Economic Populism Varies Across Religious Affiliation and Christian Nationalism Groups 

There are substantial differences in economic populism across religious groups. Religiously unaffiliated Americans are the most likely to score high on the economic populism scale (46%), followed by members of other non-Christian religions and Black Protestants (39% each). Three in ten Hispanic Protestants and Hispanic Catholics (30% each) score high, as do about one-quarter of Jewish Americans (24%). Smaller shares of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (22%), white Catholics (20%), white evangelical Protestants (12%), and Latter-day Saints (8%) score high on economic populism. Unsurprisingly, we see majorities of Latter-day Saints (57%) and white evangelical Protestants (54%) score low on the scale. 

Most Christian nationalism Rejecters (60%) score high on the economic populism scale, compared with one-quarter of Skeptics (25%), 13% of Sympathizers, and 15% of Adherents. By contrast, nearly half of Christian nationalism Adherents (48%) and Sympathizers (47%) score low on economic populism, compared with 31% of Skeptics and just 9% of Rejecters. 

Key Demographics 

Multiracial Americans are the most likely to score high (38%), followed by Black (35%), AAPI (34%), and Hispanic (31%) Americans, compared with 27% of white Americans. Black (43%), Hispanic (42%) and AAPI Americans (40%) are most likely to fall into the medium category. By contrast, white Americans are the most likely to score low on economic populism (37%), compared with 24% of multiracial, 23% of AAPI, 19% of Hispanic, and 13% of Black Americans. 

Support for economic populism tends to increase with educational attainment. More than one-third of Americans with postgraduate degrees (36%) score high on the economic populism scale, compared with 31% of college graduates and 27% of those with some college education or a high school education. Americans with a high school education are most likely to fall in the middle (40%), while about one-third of those with some college education (35%) or a college degree (34%) score low on economic populism. 

Younger Americans are more likely than older Americans to score high on economic populism. About one-third of Americans ages 18-29 (34%) and ages 30-49 (32%) score high, compared with about one-quarter of those ages 50-64 (24%) and those ages 65 and older (26%). By contrast, Americans ages 50-64 (35%) and those 65 and older (36%) are more likely than Americans ages 18-29 (22%) to score low on economic populism. 

Women are more likely than men to score high on economic populism (31% vs. 26%), while men are more likely than women to score low on the scale (35% vs. 25%). 

Personal and National Views of the Economy and Financial Security 

Among Americans who say the economy is going in the right direction, a majority (65%) score low on the economic populism scale, while just 5% score high. By contrast, among those who say the economy is going in the wrong direction, four in ten score high (37%) or in the middle of the scale (39%), while just 20% score low. 

A similar pattern emerges when Americans think about their own economic situation and concerns about their financial security. Among those who say their personal economic situation has mostly changed for the better over the past two years, half score low on the scale (49%), while just 17% score high. Among those who say their economic situation has mostly changed for the worse, however, 39% score high or in the middle of the scale, compared with just 18% who score low. At the same time, Americans who completely or mostly agree that they are very concerned their family will not be able to pay for housing and basic living expenses over the next year are significantly more likely than those who agree to score high on economic populism (41% vs. 22%). By contrast, those who disagree are three times as likely as those who disagree to score low on economic populism (42% vs. 14%).