Does it matter if a majority of Americans say their financial situation is good today?

This shoulg be obvious, but polls don't always tell the full story

A reader named Gayle points me to something Matthew Yglesias wrote recently about a new Gallup poll. The poll shows that 57% of Americans say their personal financial situation is excellent or good, a recovery from a low of recent 49% during the worst days of the pandemic (economically speaking) last year. Here’s the trend over time:

Gallup’s poll also s…