Monitoring the economy
This article argues that individuals should monitor the economy most during times of economic and political uncertainty or hardship. To test the argument, we investigate macrolevel factors that shape individuals’ attention to, and retention of, economic information in the U.S. Beyond economic indicators, including unemployment, inflation, and stock prices, we investigate political and electoral changes, international crises, and media coverage. In addition, we ask if individuals monitor the economy in fundamentally different (and politically consequential) ways, depending on their level of education. We test the hypotheses with over 80,000 survey respondents in the national, monthly Surveys of Consumers from 1979 to 2013. The findings reveal that respondents from all educational backgrounds respond in remarkably similar ways to changing national political and economic conditions. We conclude by discussing the findings’ implications for our conventional understanding of opinion formation.