Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
MELISSA ROGERS: Good morning. My name is Melissa Rogers, and I am Executive Director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Welcome to “A Call for Reckoning: Religion and the Death Penalty.” We look forward to a lively and engaging discussion on this important issue. Let me say a special word of thanks […]
2:00 – 4:30 p.m. National Press Club Washington, D.C. MIKE ARMACOST (President, Brookings Institution): It’s a great pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the Brookings Institution and, of course, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. In recent years a new dialogue has started on what congregations’ proper roles are in lifting up […]
Introduction and Summary Despite the news media’s intense focus on the disappearance of Chandra Levy and her relationship with Rep. Gary Condit, public interest in the story is relatively low, particularly when compared to other celebrity scandal cases in recent years that have attracted massive media attention. The latest Pew Research Center survey, conducted July […]
Moderator: E.J. Dionne, Jr. Panelist: Justice Antonin Scalia Paul Simon Beth Wilkinson JOHN CARLSON, University of Chicago and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: For those of you who are just joining us, let me recap briefly a bit of the terrain we covered today. This morning we were introduced to several religious […]
SELECTED KEY FINDINGS ON FIVE CITIES PORTLAND, OREGON Real changes in communities are evident in Portland as a result of a wide range of community Internet projects, some of them long-established. Portland”s Neighborhood Pride Team, initially founded to revitalize a community in southeast Portland, has grown from one computer in 1995 to a skills center […]
Introduction and Summary As the 90’s economic boom fades into history, one of its legacies is the increasing number of Americans who see society as divided between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’ More than four-in-ten (44%) now believe the nation is split along these lines, compared to just 26% who felt that way in 1988, […]
Finances Top Family Problem Economic concerns are weighing on the minds of Americans these days. When asked in an open-ended format to name the biggest problem currently facing them and their families, most Americans (62%) cite financial concerns, and the proportion doing so is up significantly from the mid-1990s. In 1994, 56% named financial concerns […]
Background There has been an aggressive national campaign to bring computers and the Internet into schools since 1996. The Telecommunications Act passed that year created the E-Rate program, which provided discounts of 20%-to-90% to schools (depending upon the number of poor children in a district) to purchase Internet access for the school or library. The […]
Introduction and Summary The public’s view of George W. Bush’s first month in office is remarkably unremarkable. Despite the extraordinary path he took to the White House, Americans are reacting to Bush in much the same way they responded to his predecessors. Bush’s modest February job approval rating (53%) is comparable to ratings accorded Bill […]
Blacks Remain Wary On balance, every major demographic group approves of the way Bush is handling his job as president, with one exception — non-whites. Overall, non-whites are fairly evenly divided over Bush’s job performance: 30% approve, 33% disapprove, 37% have no opinion. Blacks are the most critical: 22% approve, 40% disapprove and 38% have […]