Nearly half of Americans (47%) say that Wall Street hurts the U.S. economy more than it helps, while 38% say it helps more than hurts; 15% offer no opinion.

The number and share of Americans living in multi-generational households rose for all age groups from 2007 to 2009, but the sharpest growth was for adults ages 25 to 34. Their numbers increased from 7.4 million to 8.7 million during that period.

A majority (55%) of Americans say the government is almost always wasteful and inefficient; half prefer a smaller government that provides fewer services.

The American public is closely divided on the question of whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry legally, with 46% opposing same-sex marriage and 45% supporting it. Those divisions extend to groups within the Republican and Democratic coalitions.

Two-thirds (67%) of post-9/11 combat veterans who had traumatic wartime experiences say their readjustment to civilian life was difficult.

During this decade of sustained warfare, only about 0.5% of the American public has been on active duty at any given time.

The rapid adoption of broadband connections (the blue lines in this chart) is one of the revolutionary changes that occurred in media and communication in the last decade. In the inaugural survey of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project in 2000, a tiny fraction of Americans had high-speed, always-on broadband connections in […]

Two-thirds (67%) of Americans approve of raising the tax rate on incomes over $250,000 as a means of reducing the national debt.

The number of Latino eligible voters increased in 2010, from 13.2 million in 2000 to 21.3 million, but only 6.6 million actually voted in that year’s elections.

More Latino children are living in poverty — 6.1 million in 2010 — than children of any other racial or ethnic group. This marks the first time in U.S. history that the single largest group of poor children is not white.