Photo by Glyn Lowe Photos.

A poll released by Gallup yesterday showed that the Washington area enjoyed the greatest level of economic confidence in 2011, clearly less sure than sentiments elsewhere that things are still in the dumps.

The D.C. metropolitan area rated -20 in Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index, which ranges from -100 to 100. The lower the score, the more people think that the economy is getting worse. Still, while more Washingtonians were more likely to rate the economy as “poor” instead of “excellent,” the survey found, the region finished six points ahead of second-place Memphis, Tenn.

But inside the District, the results of the poll were even rosier. D.C. itself rated -4 on the scale, a full 22 points better than runner-up North Dakota, which is in the midst of an oil boom.

In the survey, 38 percent of Washington-area respondents said they believed the economy was getting better, while 56 percent said it was getting worse.

Most of the metropolitan areas ranked showed a strong correlation between the job market and overall economic confidence, though those numbers were not as closely tethered for the most confident areas, including Washington. Gallup gave Washington a Job Creation Index score of 19, right around the middle of the pack.

That’s not too surprising, though, considering recent local unemployment trends. Though the District’s jobless rate is slowly ticking downward—it was 9.9 percent at the end of January—so too has the number of total jobs.

Much of the job shrinkage here has come, naturally, from reductions in the size of the federal and local workforces. Planned cuts—or “sequestration”—to the federal payroll in coming years mean the federal government will be pumping less money into the local economy. Coupled with the trend that the District government has slashed 15.5 percent of its payroll since December 2007, and it’s no wonder that even the economy seems less dismal in D.C. than anywhere else, it’s still a ways off from feeling positive.