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This report is based upon the findings of focus groups and national surveys that the Economic Policy Institute conducted in 2005 and 2006 under the sponsorship of the Rockefeller Foundation's Economic Resiliency Group, as well as a study of the findings of public opinion research about American's attitudes about the economy over the past quarter century. The purpose of this research was not to take a snapshot of public opinion in 2006 but rather to paint a portrait of how Americans think about the economy, allowing for changing economic, social, and political conditions. We sought to uncover and analyze Americans' underlying attitudes about the economy—basic ways of thinking that persist in the midst of upturns, downturns, and administrations of both major parties. Beyond the anxiety of the first half of this decade and the prosperity of the second half of the last decade, these attitudes have been more profoundly influenced by the transformative impact of what has come to be called the "New Economy"—the new ways of working and doing business that have emerged in response to new technologies, international trade and investment, and the deregulation of many major industries. In many important ways, the utterances of political and governmental elites on both sides of the spectrum—conservatives and liberals—do not reflect the ways that everyday Americans think about the economy. Most Americans tend to be simultaneously pessimistic and optimistic about the economy.