HARI SREENIVASAN:

One subject that's sure to come up in the final presidential debate is the state of the American economy, and, more specifically, the state of the American worker.

During the primary season, in what now seems ages ago, we looked at Americans' attitudes toward the economy. We have an update tonight with our partners at Marketplace and "Frontline," part of our series on How the Deck Is Stacked.

The unemployment rate may now stand at 5 percent officially, and more than 10 million new jobs have been created during the Obama administration. But a new survey done by Marketplace and Edison Research found nearly a third of people are afraid of losing their jobs within the next six months, and almost 40 percent of people say they are losing sleep over their financial situation.

Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal is with us again.

Kai, when we first did this a year ago, we expected things to get better. Why are people more anxious now and seem less financially secure?

KAI RYSSDAL, Host & Senior Editor, Marketplace: The thing about the economy, Hari, is that we measure it in numbers, right, things like the unemployment rate, but people experience it through how they feel.

And what they're feeling now is anxiety, possibly because the election is drawing near, possibly because they sense that the headline numbers of unemployment at 5 percent and gross domestic product growing at a percent-and-a-half, plus or minus, they're not feeling that in their lives, while, at the same time, food prices are going up and gas is bopping around, $2.5, $3 a gallon, whatever it is.

People don't feel that security they really would like to feel seven years now into an economic expansion.