Ya wanna know how bad it is? Part Three

Driven by fears of job loss, consumer confidence has crashed to a level near the all-time low recorded last July. It fell 19.4 points below November's score, according to the Royal Bank of Canada's Cash Index.

The latest grim news came on Thursday, when the Labor Department reported that initial applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 573,000 for the week ended Dec. 6, the highest level in 26 years. Fully 65 percent of Americans said they're less confident about their job security now than they were six months ago. And 50 percent said that either someone in their family or someone they know personally lost their jobs because of economic conditions in the past six months.

Meanwhile, a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press says

[f]ully 92% of the public rates the national economy as only fair or poor, and a substantial majority (61%) judges their personal finances that way. Both measures are among the most negative recorded in Pew Research Center surveys over the past 15 years.

Some 73% of Americans say they are cutting back on holiday spending, according to the survey. That was asked only in December. On seven other measures, ranging from eating out through making major purchases to preparing for retirement, the percentage of people saying they were cutting back rose from September to October and again from October to November.

Nearly six-in-ten (59%) of those who say they are cutting back or delaying purchases report they are doing so because they worry things might get worse. Just 28% say they are cutting back because their financial situation has gotten worse.

Just? The poll also says that 4% volunteered the answer "both," that is, their situation has gotten worse and they fear it will get worse still. So virtually one-third of all Americans say their financial situation has gotten worse and that gets the adjective "just?"

Taking the context into consideration, I don't think that word means what Pew thinks it means.