Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Introduction and Summary Majorities of the American public as well as the nation’s Opinion Leaders approve the expansion of NATO into Central Europe, according to surveys by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press released today (Tuesday 4 p.m.) as the Senate begins hearings on Alliance enlargement. These results come from a […]
Survey Findings In an era in which virtually all Americans share very few things, the story of Princess Diana’s death captivated the nation. Nearly nine in ten Americans paid attention to news of the tragedy and more than half (54%) followed the tragedy very closely. No other story this year has come close. Modern communications […]
Introduction By the summer of 1941, the Germans had defeated the French, driven the British army into the sea and were attempting to bomb London into submission. The Gallup Poll took the extraordinary effort of conducting a poll in each of the then 48 states asking: “If you were asked to vote today on […]
Introduction and Summary For the first time in a very long time, Americans are happy with the country’s course and it is beginning to pay dividends to the political establishment. Not only are Bill Clinton’s approval ratings approaching Reagan’s at a comparable point, but support for Congressional incumbents is at a decade high, and interest […]
Survey Findings Pew’s latest News Interest Index finds that a little bit of news about Medicare reform travels a long way, while a lot of news about tax relief is mostly greeted with shrugs and disbelief. Fewer than four in ten Americans (38%) paid close attention to the ongoing Washington debate about how to cut […]
Introduction and Summary Psychologically, Americans have turned an important corner recently. They have become much less concerned about meeting major financial commitments, even though they say their material conditions have not dramatically improved. Heightened worries about affording health care, saving for retirement, or saving for a child’s college education have fallen off significantly in recent […]
Survey Findings An analysis of public attentiveness to more than 500 news stories over the last ten years confirms that the American public pays relatively little attention to many of the serious news stories of the day. The major exceptions to this rule are stories dealing with natural and man-made disasters and U.S. military actions. […]
Introduction and Summary Contemporary motherhood is a balancing act for many women. Fully half of American women with children under 18 now work full time, and the biggest challenge they face, in their own words, is dealing with time pressures attendant to being a mother as well as a worker and a wife. No wonder […]
Introduction and Summary Top news stories from Washington are not connecting with the American people, according to the latest News Interest Index poll. A summit meeting, the growing campaign finance controversy and the legislative impasse on Capitol Hill have so far failed to stir the public. Just 6% of Americans followed very closely news about […]