Earlier this year, Americans seemed to see some green shoots and there was a little economic optimism forming. At the moment, this optimism seems to have slowed down slightly. Looking ahead to the coming year, just three in ten U.S. adults (30%) say they expect the economy to improve while two in five (42%) say it will stay the same; 28% believe it will get worse. Last month, almost two in five Americans (38%) said they thought the economy would improve in the coming year while 34% said it would stay the same and 28% believed it would get worse.

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,227 adults surveyed online between June 14 and 21, 2010 by Harris Interactive.

Narrowing the time and focus to the next six months and one's own household finances, just one in five Americans (21%) believe their financial condition will be better in the next six months while over half (52%) say it will be the same and 27% believe it will get worse. In May, one-quarter (25%) believed their household's financial condition would be better in the next six months while 47% believed it would remain the same and 28% said it would be worse.

There is an interesting generational difference in how the coming six months are perceived. Younger Americans are more optimistic. Almost three in ten (28%) Echo Boomers (those 18-33) say their household's finances will be better in the next six months and only 19% say they will be worse. Going to the oldest generation, Matures (aged 65 years and older), just 14% believe their household's finances will be better in the next six months, while over one-third (36%) say they will be worse.

There are also political party differences. Over one-quarter of Democrats (27%) say they expect their household's financial condition to be better in the next six months while 18% expect it to be worse. On the other hand, almost two in five Republicans (37%) say they expect their household's financial condition to be worse in the next six months and only 15% expect it to be better.

There is also a bit of pessimism on when the economy will start growing again. Just 14% of Americans believe the economy has already started growing, down from 17% who said so in April of this year. In April, one in ten (9%) U.S. adults thought the economy would start growing within the next six months and this month only 7% think so. One in five Americans (18%) say the economy will start growing between 6 and 12 months from now, but over two in five (43%) say it won't start growing for another year or more.

So What?

Americans are hoping for some clear signs of economic improvements, but what is clear is that they have yet to see any. And unfortunately, they also do not think that there are any signs in the near future. Until those signs are on the horizon, while the pessimism may ebb and flow, the economic optimism will take a while to shine in the American public.