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Polls Show Americans' Confused View of Stimulus, Taxes, Deficit
Tweet Share on Facebook July 26, 2010 Comment (12)In recent weeks, a growing number of academic and market economists have been urging the government to defer budget cutting measures and instead provide additional stimulus to a still fragile economy. A recent survey, however, portrays the public as, at best, dubious about this prescription.
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Polls Show More Than Tea Party Anger Toward Government
Tweet Share on Facebook May 5, 2010 Comment (12)By Jodie Allen, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Anti-government crusaders have found ample confirmation in a recent Pew Research Center poll showing that Americans’ trust in government is about as low as it has been in half a century: only 22 percent now say they can trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time. Support for a more activist government role in addressing national problems continues to decline along with satisfaction with the state of the nation’s economy.
Discontent with government performance is not, however, a new story in this land of ours. With the exception of a brief “rally round the flag” dip post-9/11, about the same relatively small majority of the public (now some 56 percent) has said they were frustrated with the federal government since the ’90s. Still, as the report notes, the segment of the public that holds intense anti-government views--those saying that they are “angry” at the feds--while still small, now matches the high reached in October 2006 (20 percent).
But while other major institutions have not been the focus of organized protests for irate citizens, many score no higher than the government on the public’s report card. Banks, financial institutions, and large corporations earn no more positive rating than the feds in terms of their effects on the way things are going in the country.And, as is often the case with regard to Americans’ views of public policy, the story gets somewhat more complicated when you get down to specific cases.
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America’s Biggest Trade Export to China? Trash
Tweet Share on Facebook March 3, 2010 Comment (16)By Jodie Allen, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It has come to the attention of a growing number of expert observers that the good old USA may have seen its best days on the world stage. But these critics may be overlooking a potential way for America to continue to play at least a major supporting part--if not an especially decorous one--in the world economic drama.
The nation now cast in the role of Eve Harrington to America's Margo Channing is, of course, China. China's economic strength continues to make headlines. Most recently: its overtake of Germany as the world's largest goods exporter last year; its fast rebound to a 10.7 percent growth rate in the 2009 fourth quarter; its projected ascent this year to the No. 2 position among world economies, displacing Japan.
It's gotten so that even the normally chest-thumping American public is feeling a bit insecure. A Pew Research Center/Council on Foreign Relations poll conducted last fall found 4 in 10 (41 percent) among the public saying the United States plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader today than it did 10 years ago--the highest proportion ever recorded in a Pew Research survey across the years. More to the point, by a 44 percent-27 percent margin, Americans now name China as the world's leading economic power rather than the United States. As recently as February 2008, 41 percent still saw the United States as the top economic power compared with 30 percent who named China.
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Working Women Ascendant--But Ambivalent
Tweet Share on Facebook January 7, 2010 Comment (9)By Jodie Allen, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"We Did It!" enthuses the Economist magazine, whose recent cover featured the iconic figure of World War II's Rosie the Riveter. The cause for celebration, as described in the magazine's "leader," (editorial in Americanese) is the ascent of womanhood to a majority position in the U.S. workforce, projected to occur sometime in the next few months. "Women's economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our times ... Millions of women have been given more control over their own lives. And millions of brains have been put to more productive use," write the editors.
A national poll conducted last spring by the Pew Research Center finds plenty of support for the female ascendancy: Only a small minority of Americans (19 percent) now think women should return to their traditional roles in society. And according to a separate survey by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project, a mere 15 percent of the public now says that insufficient toughness on their part accounts for the scarcity of women in top business positions (though the persistence of an "old boys network" remains a retardant, according to the public).
As a woman who came of age at a time when her mother (herself a pioneering law school graduate) counseled her to start off work life by taking the federal civil service exam "because they can't weed out high scorers," I can only join in the Economist's applause. But how do most of today's Rosie Riveters feel about being "put to more productive use?"
In a word, ambivalent. A 2009 Pew Research poll found, for example, that a substantial majority of all working mothers (62 percent) say they would prefer to work part time. Only 37 percent would prefer to work full time. By contrast, an overwhelming majority (79 percent) of working fathers say they prefer full-time work. Only 1 in 5 would prefer part-time employment.
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Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays? Americans Are Apathetic
Tweet Share on Facebook December 21, 2009 Comment (31)By Jodie Allen, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Sharing the view of the majority of U.S. News readers (judging by the "Are the Holidays Too Secular?" vote when I checked it recently), about half of Americans (52 percent) say they are bothered at least to some degree by the commercialization of Christmas. This, according to a 2005 Pew Research Center poll, includes 26 percent who say that they are bothered by it a lot.
But most Americans, whatever their preferences for holiday celebrations and public displays thereof, are not highly concerned about the matter. When given the option of hearing "Merry Christmas" or a less religious greeting—like "Happy Holidays"—in stores and businesses, Americans do choose Merry Christmas by a 60 percent-to-23 percent margin. But when specifically given "doesn't matter" as an option, a 45 percent-plurality express no preference for how they are greeted during the holiday season—42 percent want Merry Christmas and 12 percent prefer the less religious greeting.
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Why More Favor War in Iran While Support for the Afghan Effort is Dropping
Tweet Share on Facebook November 23, 2009 Comment (8)By Jodie Allen, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Recent polls reveal a curious contrast between the public's current feelings about America's ongoing war in Afghanistan and the possibility of the nation adding another front to its list of military engagements, this one in Iran.
Though most Americans aren't ready to cut and run, an increasing number are having second thoughts about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. A Pew Research Center November poll finds 56 percent endorsing the initial decision to use force, down 8 percentage points since January. Similarly, a late September Pew poll found support among Americans for keeping troops in Afghanistan until the country is stable stood at 50 percent—a hefty seven-point drop since June. This despite the fact that fully three-in-four Americans see a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan as a major threat to U.S. well-being.
Yet even as enthusiasm for involvement in Afghanistan faded, an October Pew Research survey, found that by a substantial 61 percent to 24 percent margin, Americans said that it is more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons than to avoid a military conflict with that country. True, the survey also found hefty support for direct negotiations—but most Americans just don't think they'll work. And when faced with the choice between a nuclear-armed Iran and military action, most Americans choose conflict.
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Behind the Shifting Poll Numbers on Abortion
Tweet Share on Facebook October 6, 2009 Comment (30)By Jodie Allen, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Experienced pollsters often find the trend in responses over time as interesting—or even more interesting—than the absolute numbers recorded. This is especially the case when dealing with controversial or novel topics, the sort of question that may tend to make respondents more likely to give what they see as the socially or morally acceptable answer rather than what they truly think.
So it caught the attention of the experts at the Pew Research Center when they noticed in an April 2009 poll that the proportion of American adults saying they thought that abortion should be legal in all or most cases had declined by 8 percentage points from the level recorded as recently as August 2008. Whereas in the 2008 poll those favoring legal abortion outnumbered those in opposition by 54 percent to 41 percent, now the two sides were essentially tied at 46 percent to 44 percent.
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Foreign and Domestic Polls Show Declining Support for U.S. Engagement Abroad
Tweet Share on Facebook September 30, 2009 Comment (7)By Jodie Allen, Thomas Jefferson Street Blog
President Barack Obama may find little comfort in public opinion polls both at home and abroad as he considers further troop deployments in Afghanistan and using military force to confront other challenges around the globe.
Close to home, surveys taken over the course of the last several years find declining appetite among the U.S. public for armed interventions overseas. Most recently, in a Sept. 22 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, just half (50 percent) of Americans now say that U.S. and NATO troops should remain in Afghanistan "until the situation has stabilized." This is a notable decline from the 57 percent who said so as recently as June, when 54 percent also said they approved of Obama's decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan early this year.
Resistance to military engagement in Afghanistan has risen despite that fact that in the same September survey a substantial majority of the public (76 percent) rates the possibility of the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan as a major threat to the well-being of the United States. As the survey report notes, nearly as many regard the return of Taliban control as a major threat as say the same about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons (82 percent).
