Americans have a love-hate relationship with the winter months.
A new YouGov poll finds that Americans' favorite month is December, with 15% saying so. Though the final month of the year is favored by many, it also leads directly into Americans' least favorite month: January, the worst according to 31%.
Only 4% name January as their favorite, behind only the 3% who most like the short month of February; another 4% like March best, giving winter the top choice of favorite month followed by the bottom three.
To determine Americans' favorite month, YouGov asked whether they love, like, dislike, or hate each month. People who love more than one month were asked to choose their favorite among the months they love. People who don't love any months and like several chose their favorite from their liked list. The same approach yielded the ranking of least favorite months.
While Americans can have at most one favorite month, they can love up to 12. Ranking months by how many more Americans "love" or "like" a month than "dislike" or "hate" it yields a different ranking than the look at favorites and least favorites.
Americans have a net positive view of every single month — winter or not — with more people reporting loving or liking each month than report hating or disliking it. While December tops the list of favorite months, it earns the third-lowest net score of all months, at +52 — that is, how much more likely people are to love or like the month (73%) than to dislike or hate it (21%).
In this alternative ranking, the spring and fall dominate. April earns the highest net score (+76), followed by May (+74), October (+71), and September (+69). The summer months of June (+68), July (+60), and August (+55) follow. They are closely trailed by March (+54), November (+54), and December (+52). The months with the lowest net scores are February (+24), and January (+17).
YouGov polling from February 2021 that also asked about favorite months — using different questions — showed similar results. January was Americans' most disliked month, while October, December, and May were people's favorite months. Both the 2023 poll and 2021 poll were conducted in February; it would take repeating this exercise at other times of year to determine how people's attitudes toward months depends on how recently they've experienced them.
See the results from this YouGov poll conducted on February 2 - 6, 2023
Methodology: This poll was conducted online on February 2 - 6, 2023 among 1,000 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to March 15, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 28% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3%.
Image: Adobe Stock (M. Schuppich)
