Americans Highly Pessimistic About Country's Long-Term Debt, New Peter G. Peterson Foundation Fiscal Confidence Survey Shows

Americans are generally pessimistic about the country's fiscal stability, according to the latest poll from the Peterson Foundation. The group's Fiscal Confidence Survey, which was released Tuesday, measures public sentiment about the national debt and found that attitudes remained negative in April, hardly changed since the beginning of 2013.

April's confidence level is 44 on a 200-point scale where 100 is neutral, representing a level below 25 percent of the range and indicating that a deeply negative view of America's fiscal situation persists. March's value was 46.

The index -- collected monthly since December 2012 and structured similarly to the Consumer Confidence Index -- examined voters' opinions on U.S. debt, its political leadership, plus fiscal and economic health.

Results show that fewer than half of Americans (42 percent) believe Social Security will have enough money to provide benefits for their retirement and 86 percent believe that without reforms Social Security and Medicare will put too much of a financial burden on younger Americans.

A majority of voters found President Obama's budget proposal to be a "very" significant step or "somewhat" significant step toward compromise, though attitudes are sharply split along partisan lines.