Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The advent of congregational sites Among our respondents, Web sites were fairly well established: 44% have been up for over 2 years, and 78% for at least one year. They were generally created on an ad hoc basis by volunteers (66%) rather than as a planned action of the clergy or a committee (27%). Once […]
Washington, D.C. Panel E.J. Dionne, The Brookings Institution Andrew Kohut, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Michael Cromartie, The Evangelical Community in American Civic Life project, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center David Devlin-Foltz, The Public Role of Mainline Protestantism project, and the Aspen Institute Alan Mittleman, Center for Jewish Community […]
State of the Nation Al Gore is benefitting from two seemingly disparate trends — higher satisfaction with the state of the nation and increased worry about longer-term economic issues. A substantial dip in public satisfaction with national conditions, which was particularly evident in the spring and early summer, has reversed itself. More than half of […]
Fewer See Political Bias Overall, the public sees less political bias in news coverage today than it did a decade ago. Although a solid majority — 69% — of Americans see news coverage as containing at least a fair amount of political bias, that percentage has decreased from 76% in 1989. At the same time, […]
Introduction and Summary Americans anticipate many perils in the next century, but none of them, no matter how grave, can dim the public’s positive view of the future. Despite consensus forecasts of natural disasters, environmental calamities and international terrorism, Americans are near unanimous in their confidence that life will get better for themselves, their families […]
An overwhelming 81% say they are optimistic about their lives and the lives of their families over the next half century; 40% consider themselves very optimistic. These optimists tend to be young, college educated and have higher than average incomes. Among Americans under age 30, 85% report feeling positive about their futures, compared to 72% […]
Foreword and Overview Foreword In 1987, we embarked on an ambitious project to better understand the nature of American politics. We identified a broad range of beliefs and values that underlie common political labels and that ultimately drive political action. A voter typology emerged from this effort which classifies the electorate into distinct groupings, defined […]
The technological progress of the 20th century is a source of great pride for Americans, who place advancements in science and technology — especially the space program — at the top of the list of American achievements. A nearly unanimous public attributes U.S. accomplishments to the Constitution, free elections and the free enterprise system. Although […]
Budget Agreement Clearly, Bill Clinton’s continued high ratings, despite Whitewater and the DNC fund raising scandal, seem more tied to a reduction in economic anxiety than to success with the budget. News interest in the budget debate once again edged down at the very time the President and Republican leaders had come to their historic […]
The Times Mirror Center in 1987 developed a unique voter classification system based on three major elements — party affiliation, political participation, and personal values and attitudes — and using the statistical technique called “cluster analysis.” The new typology developed in 1995 is built on the same foundation, with minor modifications. Nine values and attitudes […]