Despite growing COVID-19 case numbers in numerous parts of the U.S., CivicScience data shows that for yet another week, Americans as a whole are slowly becoming more and more comfortable getting back to many public activities.
The latest data from the week of August 30 show that American adults continue to be less concerned about being out in public spaces.
Though it declined last week, the number of people who think social-distancing will need to go on for another 6 or more months rests at 40%.
Americans continue to be split on resuming their lives, though a slightly higher percentage of Americans report they have not resumed much to begin with (49%) than those who say they have resumed normal activities and are still doing so (45%).
According to the most recent week’s data set, 93% of more than 800 18-24-year-olds included, say they resumed normal activities right away and have continued to do so. This tapers down with age groups.
This week even more people (46%) say they’re comfortable going out to eat at restaurants, reaching the highest point CivicScience has seen to date.
However, unlike resuming all normal activities shown above, the increased comfort in dining out in restaurants now is not just driven by young adults. We see similar percentages in 18-54-year-olds who say they are comfortable dining out now. Only with Americans 55+ does it drop off.
What’s more is more than a third of people (35%) say they plan to dine in at a restaurant in the coming week, which is more than CivicScience has observed to date (since tracking began in April of this year).
However, income is a huge driver of this decision. People with plans to dine out in the next 7 days are much more likely to be wealthy Americans (in the $125k+ segment), by quite a notable margin:
Lastly, while more adults than we’ve seen to date say they’re comfortable traveling (in any way) now (36%), the very slight spike in airline travel plans we saw last week has since leveled off.