Fact Tank - News In Numbers | Pew Research Center

Morgan Jackson, 18, scoops ice cream while working at Beals Ice Cream in Portland, Maine, on April 26. Last July, 33.8% of working teens were in accommodation and food services, up from 22.6% in July 2000. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

School’s out for summer, and U.S. teens are headed for … where, exactly? Probably not to a paying job, according to Pew Research Center’s latest analysis of federal employment data.

As recently as two decades ago, roughly half of U.S. teens could expect to spend at least part of their summer vacation lifeguarding, selling T-shirts, dishing up soft-serve ice cream or otherwise working for pay. But the share of teens working during the summer has tumbled since 2000: Only about a third of teens (34.6%) had a job last summer, despite some recovery since the end of the Great Recession. And when teens do get summer jobs these days, they’re more likely to be busing tables or tending a grill than staffing a mall boutique or souvenir stand.

To understand what’s happened to the Great American Summer Job, the Center looked at the employment rate – or, more formally, the employment-population ratio – for 16- to 19-year-olds over the past seven decades. We took the average employment rate for June, July and August of each year as our measure of summer employment. (We used non-seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for this analysis, since teen employment rises sharply in the summer months and typically peaks in July.)

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Topics:

Teens and Youth Business and Labor Work and Employment National Economy

By Mason Walker and Jeffrey Gottfried

As fact-checking organizations are increasingly being tapped to fight against misinformation, Republicans appear to have serious concerns about the fairness of these groups. Democrats, on the other hand, mostly think they are fair to all sides.

Overall, Americans are split in their views of fact-checkers: Half say fact-checking efforts by news outlets and other organizations tend to deal fairly with all sides, while about the same portion (48%) say they tend to favor one side, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Feb. 19 to March 4, 2019.

But members of the two parties do not see eye-to-eye on this question. Seven-in-ten Republicans say fact-checkers tend to favor one side, compared with roughly three-in-ten Democrats (29%) – a 41 percentage point difference. Conversely, most Democrats (69%) say fact-checkers deal fairly with all sides, a view shared by just 28% of Republicans. Independents are more split, with 47% saying fact-checkers tend to favor one side and 51% saying they deal fairly with all sides – though independents who lean toward the Democratic Party and those who lean toward the Republican Party diverge sharply (65% vs. 37% say fact-checkers deal fairly with all sides, respectively).

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Topics:

Trust, Facts and Democracy News Audience Trends and Attitudes Emerging Technology Impacts

By Christine Tamir and Christine Huang

Leaders from the G20 nations will meet in Osaka, Japan, this week at a time when some of the core values of the organization, such as free trade and an environmentally sustainable future, are being challenged. The forum, originally established to ensure global financial stability, will feature discussions around eight main themes this year, including the global economy, women’s empowerment, and energy and the environment.

Pew Research Center conducted public opinion surveys in many of the G20 member nations in 2018. Based on these surveys, here is a look at the way people in these countries view some of the central issues that will be addressed at this year’s summit.

Women’s empowerment

G20 leaders previously committed to a 25% reduction in the gap between the shares of men and women participating in their countries’ labor forces by 2025. At this year’s summit, the focus is on including more women in the labor force, enhancing STEM education for women and continuing engagement with women business leaders.

Across the G20 nations surveyed in 2018, people are strongly in favor of increased gender equality in their country. The Center asked respondents whether they thought equality between men and women had increased or decreased in their country over the past two decades, followed by a question evaluating whether they saw this as a good or bad thing for their nation. (For more, see “How people around the world view gender equality in their countries.”)

Around three-quarters favor more gender equality in India, Australia, South Korea and France. But many among the populations surveyed also see the gender equality landscape as unchanged over the past 20 years. In Japan, for instance, around one-third say that equality between men and women has remained unchanged over the past two decades.

The labor force participation rate among women has risen in most G20 countries over the past two decades. In Brazil, for example, 54% of working-age women participated in the labor force in 2018, up from 48% in 1998. Still, in three G20 countries – including the United States – labor force participation among women has declined during this span. Overall, women’s participation in the labor force remains appreciably lower than men’s participation in all G20 members.

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Topics:

Global Balance of Power International Threats and Allies International Organizations International Governments and Institutions

By J. Baxter Oliphant

Sri Vasamsetti was watching at the Comet Tavern in Seattle as Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election. Now, Democrats are looking ahead to the 2020 race as debates begin. (Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images)

The race for the Democratic presidential nomination enters a new phase this week with the first debates taking place in Miami, starting with 10 candidates who will face off tonight and another 10 on Thursday. Those who will appear are a diverse group – by background, age, gender, race and ethnicity and ideology – and reflect the competition of ideas within the party about its strategy and future.

Here are six facts about Democrats today.

1Self-identified liberals make up a larger share of the Democratic Party than they once did. Nearly half of all Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (46%) describe their political views as liberal, an increase of 17 percentage points since 2003. Today, 39% of Democrats say they are moderate, while just 14% are conservative.

2Democratic voters have become much more racially and ethnically diverse over the past two decades. The next generation of Americans will be the country’s most diverse yet. Democrats are changing to reflect the nation’s growing racial and ethnic diversity more quickly than Republicans. In 2017, 59% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters were non-Hispanic whites, down from 75% two decades earlier. The share of Democratic voters who are black, Hispanic, Asian American or of another race has increased from 24% to 39% over this period. Non-Hispanic whites made up an overwhelming share of Republican voters in 2017 (83%); in 1997, 92% of GOP voters were white non-Hispanics.

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Topics:

Presidential Approval U.S. Political Parties Political Attitudes and Values

By A.W. Geiger

Cannabis buds are shown to a customer at a dispensary in Desert Hot Springs, California, on Jan. 1, 2018 – the day recreational marijuana sales became legal in the state. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

Illinois this month became the latest U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana. The legislation signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker permits recreational use of the drug for adults 21 and older and allows for the expungement of minor marijuana-related convictions. Illinois had previously legalized marijuana for medical purposes.

Nationwide, public support for cannabis legalization has steadily grown in recent years. As support has risen, a growing number of states have legalized or decriminalized the drug. Here are five facts about Americans and marijuana:

1A majority of Americans support marijuana legalization. About six-in-ten Americans (62%) say the use of marijuana should be legalized, according to a fall 2018 survey. Public opinion on marijuana legalization was essentially the opposite nearly two decades ago: In 2000, a similar majority (63%) said the use of marijuana should be illegal.

2Views of marijuana legalization differ by generation and political party, though support has increased across demographic groups over time. Majorities of Millennials (74%), Gen Xers (63%) and Baby Boomers (54%) say the use of marijuana should be legal, up sharply from earlier years. And while a smaller share of the Silent Generation (39%) currently favors legalization, support among these Americans has also increased.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to support the legalization of marijuana (69% vs. 45%). Around two-thirds of independents (68%) also favor legalization. Support has increased among all three groups over the last decade.

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Topics:

Drugs Domestic Affairs and Policy

By Hannah Hartig

Republicans express intensely negative views of “socialism” and highly positive views of “capitalism.”

By contrast, majorities of Democrats view both terms positively, though only modest shares have strong impressions of each term.

Overall, a much larger share of Americans have a positive impression of capitalism (65%) than socialism (42%), according to a new survey by Pew Research Center.

There are large partisan differences in views of capitalism: Nearly eight-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (78%) express somewhat or very positive reactions to the term, while just over half of Democrats and Democratic leaners (55%) say they have a positive impression.

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Topics:

Capitalism Political Polarization U.S. Political Parties Political Attitudes and Values

By Amanda Barroso

Americans turn to family and friend networks to talk about race and race relations. But who is likely to be having these conversations, with whom and how often depend at least in part on a person’s racial and ethnic identity, age, education and political affiliation, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey.

Most black and Asian adults (63% and 66%, respectively) say race or race relations come up in their conversations with family and friends at least sometimes, compared with about half of white (50%) and Hispanic (49%) adults. Blacks are more likely than other racial or ethnic groups to say these topics come up often; 27% of black adults say this compared with 11% of white, 15% of Hispanic and 13% of Asian adults.

In addition to exploring who is having these conversations – and with whom – the survey asked how comfortable people feel when race or race relations comes up in their conversations. Most black (77%), white (74%), Asian (70%) and Hispanic (62%) adults who ever have conversations about race say they are generally very or somewhat comfortable when the topic comes up. Among Hispanics, roughly four-in-ten (37%) say they feel at least somewhat uncomfortable when race comes up in conversations with family and friends, and this is particularly the case among foreign-born Hispanics (47% say these conversations make them uncomfortable vs. 29% of Hispanics born in the U.S.).

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Topic:

Race and Ethnicity

By Bradley Jones

When Republicans take stock of the national climate for political discourse, they see a much more hospitable environment for Democrats than for members of their own party. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (64%) think that “Democrats in this country are very comfortable to freely and openly express their political views,” but only about a quarter (26%) think Republicans around the nation experience that same level of comfort.

By contrast, Democrats have only modestly different assessments of the national climate for members of the two parties, according to a new Pew Research Center study of views about political discourse.

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Topics:

Political Polarization U.S. Political Parties Political Attitudes and Values

By David Masci, Anna Brown and Jocelyn Kiley

Same-Sex Wedding Ceremony, Florida — Partners Kevin Foster (right) and Joey Thibodeaux place wedding bands on each other’s fingers during their wedding ceremony in Florida. (AP Photo/Alex Menendez)

On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that granted same-sex couples a constitutional right to marry. The 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized gay marriage nationwide, including in the 14 states that did not previously allow gays and lesbians to wed. The decision rested in part on the court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment; the justices ruled that limiting marriage to heterosexual couples violates the amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

As we approach the fourth anniversary of the ruling, here are five key facts about same-sex marriage:

1The share of Americans who favor same sex-marriage grew steadily for most of the last decade, but public support has leveled off in the last few years. Around four-in-ten U.S. adults (37%) favored allowing gays and lesbians to wed in 2009, a share that rose to 62% in 2017. But views are largely unchanged over the last few years. About six-in-ten Americans (61%) support same-sex marriage in the most recent Pew Research Center survey on the issue, conducted in March 2019.

2Although support in the U.S. for same-sex marriage has increased among nearly all demographic groups, there are still sizable demographic and partisan divides. For example, today, 79% of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated favor same-sex marriage, as do 66% of white mainline Protestants and 61% of Catholics. Among white evangelical Protestants, however, only 29% favor same-sex marriage. Still, this is roughly double the level (15%) in 2009.

While support for same-sex marriage has grown steadily across generational cohorts in the last 15 years, there are still sizable age gaps. For instance, 45% of adults in the Silent Generation (those born between 1928 and 1945) favor allowing gays and lesbians to wed, compared with 74% of Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996). There also is a sizable political divide: Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are much less likely to favor same sex marriage than Democrats and Democratic leaners (44% vs. 75%).

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Topics:

Supreme Court Gay Marriage and Homosexuality Federal Government Social Values Lifestyle

By Anna Brown

A Brooklyn couple who married after meeting through an online dating website. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

As online dating has increased in popularity and lost much of its stigma over the past few decades, researchers have speculated that it could change the landscape of dating – and perhaps marriage – in big ways. By providing ways to meet others they wouldn’t bump into in their day-to-day lives, has online dating made its users more likely to choose a partner who is different from them in race or ethnicity, education, political party or income?

A Pew Research Center analysis of recently released survey data from Stanford University finds that couples who meet online are, in fact, more likely to be diverse in some of these dimensions. But this can be explained by the fact that online daters tend to be younger than those who meet offline, and younger people are more likely to be in relationships with people who are different from them, regardless of how they meet.

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Topics:

Online Dating Internet Activities Demographics Lifestyle

NEWS IN THE NUMBERS

Republicans far more likely than Democrats to say fact-checkers tend to favor one side

How people in G20 nations see key issues ahead of this year’s summit

Women’s empowerment

6 facts about Democrats as the party holds its presidential debates

5 facts about marijuana

Stark partisan divisions in Americans’ views of ‘socialism,’ ‘capitalism’

Republicans see a national political climate comfortable for Democrats, but less so for GOP

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