Publications

short readsMay 5, 2014

Supreme Court affirms town council’s right to prayer

The Supreme Court brought some clarity to the role of prayer in civic life today by reaffirming that prayer before legislative bodies is not only constitutional, but that it can contain Christian and other faith-specific language. At the same time, today’s 5-4 ruling in Town of Greece v. Galloway largely upheld existing case law rather than significantly breaking new ground.
short readsMay 5, 2014

More women than men earn the federal minimum wage

Substantially more women than men are in jobs that pay the minimum wage of less, , according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by the Pew Research Center.
reportMay 5, 2014

Do Americans Change Their Race? From One Census to the Next, Millions Do

This links to a FactTank posting about research that used data from census questionnaires in 2000 and 2010 to analyze how many Americans changed their racial or ethnic identity from one census to the next. The result: At least 10 million did.
short readsMay 5, 2014

Millions of Americans changed their racial or ethnic identity from one census to the next

Americans of mixed race, American Indians, Pacific Islanders and Hispanics were among those most likely to check different boxes.
reportMay 5, 2014

Midterm Election Indicators Daunting for Democrats

With the midterm elections six months away, Democrats are burdened by an uneven economic recovery and a stubbornly unpopular health care law. Perhaps equally important, Barack Obama’s political standing is in some respects weaker than it was at a comparable point in the 2010 campaign, which ended with the Republicans gaining a majority in the […]
short readsMay 2, 2014

Chart of the Week: How America’s poor can still be rich in stuff

While most manufactured goods are considerably cheaper than they were three decades ago, many key services are much more expensive — contributing to the paradox of greater material abundance among even poor Americans.
reportMay 2, 2014

Americans want to steer clear of Ukraine crisis

As the crisis in Ukraine deepens, Americans back the kind of economic sanctions against Russia recently announced by the Obama administration. But even as allegations mount of covert Russian intervention in Ukraine, a war-weary American public doesn’t back getting tougher on Moscow.
short readsMay 2, 2014

How religious harassment varies by region across the globe

Here’s a region-by-region look at where religious harassment takes place, and to which groups.
short readsMay 2, 2014

Support for al Qaeda was low before (and after) Osama bin Laden’s death

Support for al Qaeda, the terrorist organization that Osama bin Laden founded, was low among the Muslim publics surveyed in 2010, and remained low in 2013, two years after bin Laden’s ignominious end.
reportMay 1, 2014

Is Attacking Obama’s Foreign Policy a Winning Strategy?

Some Republicans see foreign policy as a winning campaign theme given President Obama’s handling of recent international crises. But surveys suggest that may not be the case.