The Pew Research Center
March 22, 2007
The study of the public’s political values and attitudes by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press — the most recent in a series of such reports dating back to 1987 — finds a pattern of rising support since the mid-1990s for government action to help disadvantaged Americans. More Americans believe that the government has a responsibility to take care of people who cannot take care of themselves, and that it should help more needy people even if it means going deeper into debt.
These attitudes have undergone a major change since 1994, when the Republicans won control of Congress. In particular, 54% say the government should help more needy people, even if it adds to the nation’s debt, up from just 41% in 1994. All party groups are now more supportive of government aid to the poor, though Republicans remain much less supportive than Democrats or independents if it means adding to the deficit.
More broadly, the poll finds that money worries are rising. More than four-in-ten (44%) say they “don’t have enough money to make ends meet,” up from 35% in 2002. While a majority continues to say they are “pretty well satisfied” with their personal financial situation, that number is lower than it has been in more than a decade.
In addition, an increasing number of Americans subscribe to the sentiment “today it’s really true that the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.” Currently, 73% concur with that sentiment, up from 65% five years ago. Growing concerns about income inequality are most apparent among affluent Americans; large percentages of lower-income people have long held this opinion.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=312
Full report (112 pages):
http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/312.pdf
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
This highly credible report does confirm that there has been a genuine shift in political values and core attitudes of the American public. Increasing concerns about personal financial security and about the plight of the disadvantaged add further support to the prevailing view that we have reached yet another point in history wherein comprehensive health care reform may be achievable.
However, for the public’s concerns to be translated into political action, changes will have to take place in Washington. The following quote from the report confirms that the Republicans have lost the confidence of many of the voters, but, perhaps more importantly, the Democrats have much more work to do if they expect to capture that confidence:
“Yet the Democrats’ growing advantage in party identification is tempered by the fact that the Democratic Party’s overall standing with the public is no better than it was when President Bush was first inaugurated in 2001. Instead, it is the Republican Party that has rapidly lost public support, particularly among political independents. Faced with an unpopular president who is waging an increasingly unpopular war, the proportion of Americans who hold a favorable view of the Republican Party stands at 41%, down 15 points since January 2001. But during that same period, the proportion expressing a positive view of Democrats has declined by six points, to 54%.”