Roughly seven-in-ten white evangelical Protestants (72%) say they approve of the way Trump is handling his job, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 16 to 22. That is a 6 percentage point drop from 78% recorded in April, in line with the 5-point drop during that period among U.S. adults overall. The share of white evangelicals who say they “very strongly” approve of Trump’s performance is now at 59%, down 8 points from 67% in April. (Pew Research Center also asked the presidential approval question in March of this year, at which time Trump’s rating was similar to results obtained in April.) Read More →
A shuttered business in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on May 12. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The COVID-19 outbreak has presented a unique set of measurement challenges for statistical agencies. Most recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the U.S. unemployment rate stood at 13% in May 2020, nonseasonally adjusted. At the same time, the bureau noted that the rate may have been as high as 16% if not for an error in the classification of the employment status of certain workers. Many workers not at work due to COVID-19-related business closures were classified as “employed but absent from work” instead of “unemployed on temporary layoff.”
The extent to which the official rate may understate the actual state of unemployment is greater for women, Asian Americans, immigrants and workers without a bachelor’s degree, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. For several groups of workers, the unemployment rate likely was 20% or higher in May, up to 5 percentage points greater than reported. Read More →
A road in Flagler Beach, Florida, washed out by ocean waters stirred up by Hurricane Matthew in October 2016. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
More than six-in-ten Americans (63%) say climate change is currently affecting their local community either a great deal or some, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 29-May 5, 2020 – similar to the share who said this in surveys from 2019 and 2018.
As is the case on many climate-related issues, perceptions of whether and how much climate change is affecting local communities are closely tied with political party affiliation. More than eight-in-ten Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party (83%) say climate change is affecting their local community at least some, compared with 37% of Republicans and Republican leaners.
But politics is not the only factor related to these perceptions. Americans who live close to a coastline are more likely than those who live farther away to say climate change is affecting their local community. Seven-in-ten Americans who live within 25 miles of a coastline say climate change is affecting their local community at least some, versus 57% of those who live 300 miles or more from a coast. Read More →
Medics take a Black patient showing COVID-19 symptoms from his apartment to a hospital in Stamford, Connecticut, on April 4. (John Moore/Getty Images)
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more evidence that Black Americans have been hospitalized with COVID-19 at higher rates than other racial or ethnic groups. But while the CDC has pointed to some possible factors that may be contributing to this pattern – such as work and residential circumstances – the public is divided in its perceptions, particularly along party lines, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 4-10.
Most U.S. adults (63%) say a major reason for higher COVID-19 hospitalization rates among Black people is that they are more likely to live in densely populated areas. Smaller but still substantial shares point to Black people being more likely to have other health conditions that put them at risk (52%), that they are less likely to have access to adequate health care (49%) and that they are more likely to work in industries that require contact with the public (45%). Read More →
Zane Baker scans the skies for migrating raptors as part of an annual hawk watch event on Bradbury Mountain in Pownal, Maine. His data goes to a national database. (Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)
In recent years, a host of new ways have emerged for people with little or no formal science training to take part in scientific research projects. Such citizen science often entails crowdsourcing data collection related to natural phenomena such as birds and astronomical objects – and, lately, the COVID-19 pandemic – but it can encompass a wide range of other activities.
One-in-ten U.S. adults say they have taken part in an activity classified as citizen science in the past year, and 26% say they have ever done so, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 29-May 5.
The Center survey combined responses to three questions to better capture the range of citizen science activities. The survey asked respondents if they had made observations or collected data samples as part of a science research project, contributed to a science-related online crowdsourcing activity, or participated in “a maker movement or hack-a-thon,” in which citizens seek to adapt and invent through hands-on use of science, technology and engineering tools. Read More →
Tensions inside American newsrooms have emerged amid the recent protests over the killing of George Floyd while in police custody, including clashes between reporters and editors and concerns about newsroom diversity. While a recent study shows black Americans give high marks to the news media’s coverage of the protests, a survey conducted before the protests found deep divides between racial and ethnic groups in feelings of how the news media represent them.
While most Americans say that the news media do not understand them, black, Hispanic and white Americans often cite very different reasons for why they are misunderstood, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Feb. 18-March 2, 2020.
Overall, 59% of Americans think news organizations do not understand people like them, while a minority – 37% – say they do feel understood. This feeling is about on par with the last time the question was asked in 2018.
Republicans in the United States are divided by generation on key questions related to climate, environmental protection and energy production, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Millennial and Gen Z Republicans – those currently ages 18 to 39 – are more likely than their GOP elders to think humans have a large role in climate change, that the federal government is doing too little on climate and that the U.S. should focus on developing alternative energy sources. For example, while relatively few Republicans overall say human activity contributes a great deal to climate change, Millennial and Gen Z Republicans are significantly more likely than Baby Boomer or older Republicans to say this (29% vs. 16%), according to the survey of U.S. adults conducted April 29-May 5.
Millennial and Gen Z Republicans also are more likely than older Republicans to say climate change is having at least some impact on their local community (43% vs. 33%) and that the federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change (49% vs. 25%).
Thousands walk across the Brooklyn Bridge in New York on June 19, 2020, at a protest after the death of George Floyd. (Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images)
Large-scale protests and rallies for racial equality have captured public attention and amplified calls for policy reforms in recent weeks. Some 6% of U.S. adults say they have attended a protest or rally that focused on issues related to race or racial equality in the last month, and those who have are more likely to be nonwhite and younger than Americans overall, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. They are also more likely to live in an urban area and to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. Read More →
An election worker sorts vote-by-mail ballots for the presidential primary in Renton, Washington, on March 10, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)
Some states are expanding access to voting by mail amid ongoing fears over the coronavirus outbreak. But while the share of Americans casting votes by mail has risen in recent presidential election cycles, it remains relatively low overall, and there’s wide variation across the country when it comes to the percentage of voters who have used this method.
Overall, the share of voters who cast ballots via mail-in methods increased nearly threefold between 1996 and 2016 – from 7.8% to nearly 21%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the Census Bureau’s voter supplement data.
But even as seven-in-ten adults favor allowing any voter to vote by mail if they would like to, there is significant variation from one state to another. States like Oregon and Washington conduct their elections almost entirely by mail (97% of voters in these states mailed in their ballots in 2016), but other states have seen relatively few mail ballots. In West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, for example, just 2% of voters mailed in their ballots in the 2016 presidential election. Read More →
People wearing masks and gloves shop for groceries at a New York City supermarket on May 1. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
As states across the country take steps toward reopening, public health authorities have emphasized the importance of wearing masks inside stores or other enclosed spaces as a precaution against COVID-19. A majority of Americans report they have followed this guidance all or most of the time in the past month; fewer say all or most of the people in their communities are wearing masks in similar settings, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 4-10, 2020.
Overall, 65% of U.S. adults say that they have personally worn a mask in stores or other businesses all or most of the time in the past month, while 15% say they did this some of the time. Relatively small shares of adults say they hardly ever (9%) or never (7%) wore a mask in the past month, and 4% say they have not gone to these types of places.
Americans in counties with more reported deaths from the coronavirus when adjusted for population are much more likely to say they wore a mask all or most of the time in stores or other businesses in the past month than those in counties where the death rate can be classified as more moderate or low (80% in high-impact counties, compared with 67% in medium- and 55% in low-impact counties).
One-in-ten U.S. adults say they have taken part in an activity classified as citizen science in the past year, and 26% say they have ever done so, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 29-May 5.
