*A new survey by Universidad Centroamericana’s Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (Iudop) shows that the economy remains the main public concern in El Salvador, with 75.8% of the 1,266 respondents citing economic-related concerns like unemployment, poverty, the high cost of living, and price rises as the key problem that they faced in December 2024. This is up from 69.9% in December 2023. When asked as to what they considered the main problem facing the country, 44.3% of respondents listed the economy, 16.4% cited unemployment, 7.1%, poverty, and 6.6%, the high cost of living. Meanwhile 28.1% of respondents thought that the country’s economic situation had deteriorated over the past year, while 44.1% thought it had remained the same and 27.8% believed it had improved. Of those who considered the country’s economic situation to have deteriorated, 28% attributed this deterioration to a rise in the basic basket of goods, 25.8% to the high cost of living, 20.1% to unemployment, and 5.9% to the country’s indebtedness. Yet the Iudop survey still showed high support for the authoritarian government led by President Nayib Bukele due to the improvement in security as a result of the state of emergency implemented since March 2022 which has significantly reduced homicide rates while stoking human rights concerns. The Iudop survey showed that 68.8% of respondents thought that more generally, the country was in a better situation now compared with a year ago, with 67.7% of those respondents citing the improvement in security as the main reason for this.