The fourth contest in the 2020 Democratic primary season takes place in South Carolina on Saturday. The views of black Democrats will be front and center: While white adults made up the majority of the Democratic primary electorates in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, black Democrats are expected to make up a majority of voters in South Carolina.
Here are five facts about black Democrats nationwide, drawn from Pew Research Center surveys conducted in the past year. Read More →
Religion has been a topic of conversation during the Democratic presidential primary, and some candidates have pointed out how their religious beliefs have shaped their political positions.
But Americans don’t consider the Democratic candidates to be particularly religious, according to a new Pew Research Center survey that covers four of the top contenders: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Sanders, who has emerged as the front-runner after winning the Nevada caucuses by a wide margin, is described as “not too” or “not at all” religious by six-in-ten Americans. Just a third of respondents say Sanders is at least “somewhat” religious, including only 4% who say he is “very” religious.
If successful, Sanders would be the first Jewish nominee at the top of a major party ticket. The Vermont senator has said he is “not actively involved with organized religion” but that being Jewish has shaped his values. Read More →
People around the world are widely dissatisfied with democracy in their country and believe that elected officials don’t care what people like them think, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Global opinion is more divided on the question of whether the state is run for the benefit of all, while people generally agree that voting gives them a say about how the government runs things in their country.
Here are eight charts that show how people around the world see the state of democracy in their country, based on the new report:
In a sharp contrast from four years ago, a large majority of Republicans say their side has been winning more often than it has been losing politically, while Democrats overwhelmingly say their side has been on the losing end more frequently.
Today, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say that on the issues that matter to them, their side has been winning more often than losing, according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted Feb. 4-15 among 6,395 adults.
Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, just 18% think their side has been winning, while 80% say their side has been losing more often. Read More →
Most Americans feel worn out by the amount of news there is these days – a feeling that has persisted for several years now.
About two-thirds of Americans (66%) feel worn out by the amount of news there is, while far fewer (32%) say they like the amount of news they are getting, according to a Pew Research Center survey of more than 12,000 U.S. adults conducted in October and November of last year – the first survey in the Center’s nearly yearlong Election News Pathways project. This feeling of news fatigue hasn’t escaped journalists either, some of whom have voiced their exhaustion with the news cycle and the seemingly endless stream of information.
Americans’ exhaustion with the news hasn’t changed since early 2018 – the last time the Center asked this question – when 68% felt worn out. And in a similar question asked several months before the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, nearly six-in-ten (59%) felt worn out by the amount of coverage of the campaign and candidates. Read More →
The United States and China have long been locked in competition over their standings as economic and world powers. And, in a region where this competition hits close to home, views of the U.S. remain strongly favorable when compared with those of China in the Asia-Pacific.
Across the six Asia-Pacific nations surveyed by Pew Research Center between May 18 and Oct. 2, 2019, a median of 64% have favorable views of the U.S. Positive sentiments are highest in the Philippines and South Korea, with about eight-in-ten respondents holding favorable opinions (80% and 77%, respectively).
However, these positive views do not extend to President Donald Trump, who receives significantly lower ratings than his predecessor in all six Asia-Pacific nations in the survey.
The varying ways in which the U.S. government has counted Americans over time offer a glimpse into the country’s past, from the days of slavery to recent waves of immigration. Racial categories, which have been included on every U.S. census since the first one in 1790, have changed from decade to decade, reflecting the politics and science of the times.
It was not until 1960 that people could select their own race. Prior to that, an individual’s race was determined by census takers, known as enumerators. And it was not until 2000 that Americans could choose more than one race to describe themselves, allowing for an estimate of the nation’s multiracial population. In 2020, for the first time, the form asks respondents who choose white or black for their race to give more information about their origins – for example, German, Lebanese, African American or Somali. Read More →
Nearly three-quarters of Americans (74%) express little or no confidence in technology companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to prevent the misuse of their platforms to influence the 2020 presidential election, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in January. At the same time, 78% say these companies have a responsibility to prevent such misuse.
Confidence in technology companies to prevent the misuse of their platforms is even lower than it was in the weeks before the 2018 midterm elections, when about two-thirds of adults had little confidence these companies would prevent election influence on their platforms.
Overall, just a quarter of adults say they are confident in tech companies to prevent their platforms from being exploited for undue influence in the election, with 20% saying they are somewhat confident and only 5% saying they are very confident. An overwhelming majority expresses low confidence in tech companies, including 43% who say they are not too confident and about three-in-ten (31%) who say they are not at all confident.
The federal minimum wage has stood at $7.25 an hour since July 2009. Given the partisan split between the House and Senate, it seems destined to remain there for the foreseeable future, despite broad public support for raising it. But in some ways, Congress’ deadlock is almost a side issue to the main debate: For the past decade or so, most of the action on minimum wages has been in states, counties and cities. In Virginia, for instance, lawmakers recently approved legislation to raise the commonwealth’s minimum wage, though the Senate and House of Delegates need to reconcile their differing versions.
Virginia is one of 21 states where the $7.25 federal minimum applies. Those states contain about 39% of all U.S. wage and salary workers – roughly 58 million people – according to our analysis of state minimum-wage laws and federal employment data. In the 29 other states and the District of Columbia, minimum wages range from $8.25 (in Nevada, for employers who don’t provide health benefits) to $16.39 (for the largest employers in Seattle). Read More →
Immigrants remain more likely than U.S.-born workers to work in lower-skill occupations. But the share of immigrants in high-skill, nonmechanical jobs has risen in recent decades, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of federal government data. The shift has been most notable in jobs that prioritize analytical skills, such as science and math, or fundamental skills, such as writing and speaking. A rising share of immigrants also work in jobs in which social skills like negotiation and persuasion are important.
Within this broad overall pattern, there are key differences between immigrant groups. Hispanic immigrants – by far the largest group of immigrant workers – are for the most part employed in lower-skill occupations. Asian immigrants – the largest bloc of new arrivals – work principally in higher-skill occupations. The distribution of skills among black immigrants falls between these two extremes, whereas white immigrant workers are spread across high-skill jobs like their Asian counterparts.
Overall, the share of immigrants in the U.S. labor force has increased sharply in recent decades, from 10% in 1995 to 17% in 2018. Immigrants are also expected to play the primary role in the growth of the country’s workforce through 2035. Read More →
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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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