Americans still believe in enterprise. What they increasingly distrust is an economy that appears to reward access, scale, and political influence more reliably than work.

What to Know

• Only 49% say capitalism is working well, down from 60% a decade ago.
• Just 35% believe America still offers a dependable path to good jobs and the American dream.
• Only 42% of adults ages 18–34 say capitalism is working well.
• While 95% view small businesses positively, only 37% feel the same about big businesses.
• 75% say billionaires and large corporations have too much influence in Washington.

At the nation’s 250th anniversary, Americans are being asked to celebrate an economic system many no longer believe is working for them. That is the uncomfortable conclusion emerging from a new Wall Street Journal-NORC survey. Just 49% of Americans say capitalism is working very or somewhat well, down from 60% roughly a decade ago. A 51% majority now says the system is not working well or is not working at all.

Screenshot of WSJ Newspaper

The shift is bigger than a debate over economic labels. Only 35% of respondents say they feel confident that the country still offers a dependable path to good jobs and the American dream. That finding strikes at a central piece of the national bargain: work hard, play by the rules, and life should become more secure.

For a growing share of Americans, that bargain no longer feels credible.

This Is Not a Rejection of Enterprise

The most important lesson in the data is also the easiest to miss. Americans have not suddenly turned against private initiative, entrepreneurship, or local commerce. They are distinguishing between an ideal and the version of the system they experience every day.

Gallup found that 95% of Americans view small business positively and 81% feel positively about free enterprise. Capitalism, however, receives a positive rating from just 54%, the lowest Gallup has recorded. Big business fares far worse at 37%.

That gap tells the real story. The public still admires the neighborhood store, the family contractor, the independent farmer, and the entrepreneur who builds something useful. What Americans increasingly resent is concentrated economic power, especially when it appears intertwined with political power. In other words, the public is not abandoning markets. It is questioning whether the market is still open, competitive, and fair.

A System Seen as Rigged From the Top

The WSJ-NORC survey found that 75% of Americans believe billionaires and large corporations have too much influence in Washington while working-class people have too little. More than half, 52%, agree that corporate power exploits workers and consumers and want the government to limit that influence or give workers a greater voice.

These are not fringe opinions. They reflect a broad perception that the rules are written by people with the resources to shape them.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, described the problem as a breakdown in the country’s informal social contract. His point captures why the decline in confidence matters. Capitalism depends on more than private ownership and profit. It also depends on public legitimacy.

Henry Olsen; image via X

People must believe effort can lead somewhere, competition is genuine, and success is not reserved for those who already hold economic or political leverage. When wages feel disconnected from productivity, housing feels permanently out of reach, and large institutions seem insulated from the consequences of failure, criticism of capitalism becomes less ideological and more personal.

Young Americans Are Sending the Loudest Warning

The generational divide makes the warning harder to dismiss. Among adults ages 18 to 34, only 42% say capitalism is working well. That rises to 46% among those ages 35 to 49, 48% among those ages 50 to 64, and 56% among Americans 65 and older.

Source: Wall Street Journal/NORC Poll, June 2026

Older Americans were more likely to enter adulthood when housing, education, and family formation consumed a smaller share of income. Younger adults have instead moved through the Great Recession, a pandemic, inflation, high housing costs, expensive education, and an increasingly insecure labor market. Their skepticism is not necessarily the product of hostility toward success. It is often the product of watching the traditional milestones of success move farther away.

Source: Wall Street Journal/NORC Poll, June 2026

Gallup’s partisan results reinforce the political stakes. Only 42% of Democrats now view capitalism positively, while 66% view socialism positively. Republicans remain much more favorable toward capitalism, but even their support exists alongside deep suspicion of major corporations and institutional power. The argument is therefore not confined to the left. Populist frustration is being expressed through different political languages on both sides.

The Political Risk Is Bigger Than a Debate Over Socialism

Candidates who treat these numbers as a simple capitalism-versus-socialism contest will miss what voters are actually saying. Many Americans are not asking the government to replace markets. They are asking why markets seem disciplined for workers and small businesses but negotiable for the powerful. They see strict consequences for missing rent, carrying medical debt, or losing a job, while dominant institutions can lobby for exemptions, subsidies, bailouts, and favorable rules.

That asymmetry creates an opening for candidates willing to talk about competition, antitrust enforcement, affordable housing, workforce mobility, small-business formation, and the political influence of concentrated wealth. It also creates danger for leaders who defend the economic status quo by reciting abstract praise for capitalism without addressing the lived conditions eroding its legitimacy.

Wrap Up

America’s economic identity will not be restored through patriotic branding alone. Confidence returns when people can see a credible relationship between work, opportunity, and security.

That means protecting genuine competition, lowering barriers for small businesses, expanding access to housing and skills, and making political institutions less responsive to concentrated money. It also means recognizing the emotional reality beneath the polling. Americans are not merely worried about prices. They are worried that the future is closing around them.

At 250, the United States is not facing a wholesale rejection of enterprise. It is facing a legitimacy crisis for a version of capitalism that too many people experience as selective, protected, and detached from the promise of upward mobility. The public has not lost faith in hard work. It has lost faith that hard work is enough.