This chart from Pew showing that labor unions and business corporations both got much more popular recently strikes me as one of the more bullish indicators I’ve seen lately.
People will often pluck a single approval rating number out of the ether and take it very seriously as a public judgment on something or other, but the extent to which approval of business tracks approval of organized labor indicates that this isn’t really how people think. Rather, confidence in important social institutions just kind of ebbs and flows in unison. Both are heading back upwards because the economy is growing and living standards are improving.
