To learn more about how Americans think about the term, Pew Research Center asked a representative sample of U.S. adults whether they consider each of 13 different news outlets to be a part of the mainstream media or not. The outlets were selected to represent a range of audience sizes and sectors.
Last March, when the coronavirus outbreak took hold of public life and forced many Americans into their homes to quarantine, some speculated that more time together for couples – and, in some cases, obstacles to accessing contraception – could result in a baby boom. Now, however, early data is pointing toward a significant drop in fertility directly related to the pandemic, both in the United States and globally, in the coming years.
Some estimate that there will be close to 300,000 fewer births in the U.S. in 2021 as a result of the outbreak. These conjectures are already coming to fruition based on provisional monthly estimates. Overall, the U.S. birth rate dropped 4% in 2020 based on provisional data, and a look at December 2020 – the month when babies conceived at the beginning of the pandemic would have been born – shows an 8% decline from the previous December, suggesting that women may have postponed pregnancies in response to the ongoing public health crisis.
Abortion has long been a contentious issue in the United States, and it is one that sharply divides Americans along partisan, ideological and religious lines.
Today, a 59% majority of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 39% think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. These views are relatively unchanged in the past few years. The latest Pew Research Center survey, conducted April 5 to 11, finds deep disagreement between – and within – the parties over abortion. In fact, the partisan divide on abortion is far wider than it was two decades ago.
Demonstrators argue during a protest against U.S. immigration policies in New York City in 2018. (Karla Ann Cote/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
When it comes to key cultural issues, Americans are significantly more divided along ideological lines than people in the United Kingdom, France and Germany, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of surveys conducted in the four countries in fall 2020.
Across 11 questions on cultural subjects ranging from nationalism to political correctness, the gap between the ideological left and right in the United States – or liberals and conservatives, in the common U.S. parlance – is significantly wider than the ideological gaps found in the European countries surveyed. In some cases, this is because America’s conservatives are outliers. In other cases, it’s because America’s liberals are outliers. In still other cases, both the right and left in the U.S. hold more extreme positions than their European counterparts, resulting in ideological gaps that are more than twice the size of those seen in the UK, Germany or France.
Americans are split on whether former President Donald Trump should be barred from social media. Some 49% of U.S. adults say Trump’s accounts should be permanently banned from social media, while half say they should not be. But views are deeply divided along partisan lines, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The survey, fielded April 12 to 18, was conducted before Facebook’s independent oversight board upheld for now the suspension of Trump’s account that was instituted in the wake of the violent riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Several social media companies acted against Trump after the attack, claiming he violated their terms of use and that his rhetoric could result in more violence.
Only 9% of adult social media users say they often post or share things about political or social issues on social media, according to newly released results from a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted Sept. 8-13, 2020. Some 70% of social media users say they never (40%) or rarely (30%) do so.
When asked about five potential reasons for why they do not post about these topics, the top two reasons users cite are concerns that the things they post or share will be used against them and not wanting to be attacked for their views. About a third of those who never or rarely post or share about these issues say that each statement is a major reason.
Roughly a fifth of those who never or rarely post about these issues say that among major reasons for this are not having anything to add to the conversation, not paying close attention to political or social issues, or not wanting to offend others.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden in their first presidential debate in September 2020. (Jim Watson and Saul Loeb/AFP)
America’s religious groups are deeply divided about President Joe Biden’s performance so far, just as they were about President Donald Trump throughout his term. In fact, Biden’s approval ratings today are nearly a mirror image of Trump’s four years ago.
Religious groups that tended to disapprove of Trump’s performance as president, including Hispanic Catholics, Black Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, mostly approve of Biden’s performance now, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted April 5-11. By contrast, groups that approved of Trump in his early days, primarily White evangelicals, now rate Biden negatively.
For example, seven-in-ten religiously unaffiliated adults (71%) say they approve of how Biden is handling the job of president, compared with three-quarters (76%) who said they disapproved of Trump’s performance in April 2017.
President Joe Biden has proposed raising taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans to help pay for a series of new initiatives, ensuring that the issue of taxes will be front and center for Congress in the weeks and months ahead.
The public’s frustrations with the U.S. tax system have not changed much in recent years. Far more Americans continue to say they are bothered “a lot” by the feeling that some corporations and wealthy people do not pay their fair share of taxes than by the complexity of the tax system or even the amount they pay in taxes.
Majorities of Americans say they are bothered a lot by the feeling that some corporations and wealthy people don’t pay their fair share in taxes (59% each), according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 5-11.
The U.S. Asian population is diverse. A record 23 million Asian Americans trace their roots to more than 20 countries in East and Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, each with unique histories, cultures, languages and other characteristics.
The 19 largest Asian origin groups in the United States together account for 97% of the nation’s total Asian population. Below are key findings about these Americans. (This analysis includes all those who identify their race as Asian alone or as part of a multiracial background, regardless of Hispanic origin. It is accompanied by updated fact sheets that describe key demographic and economic characteristics of each of Asian origin group, as well as by another analysis that details the diversity of origins within the Asian American population.)
Asian Americans are the fastest-growing major racial or ethnic group in the United States. More than 20 million Asians live in the U.S., and almost all trace their roots to at least 19 countries in East and Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
The 19 largest Asian origin groups in the U.S. differ significantly by income, education and other characteristics. These differences highlight the wide diversity of the nation’s Asian population and provide a counterpoint to the “model minority” myth and the description of the group as monolithic. Highlighting these differences within the Asian population has been central to debates about how data about the group should be collected by governments, colleges and universities and other groups, and how it can be used to shape policies impacting the diverse U.S. Asian population.
Here’s a look at some of these differences, as well as how individual origin groups compare with the nation’s overall Asian American population.
