Obama returns focus to America’s struggling middle class
As President Obama prepares to make a “major” speech on the economy today, our past reports describe the challenges the middle class has faced in the past decades.
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As President Obama prepares to make a “major” speech on the economy today, our past reports describe the challenges the middle class has faced in the past decades.
Overview Four years after the recession officially ended, the economic recovery remains a long way off in the view of many Americans. A new survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults, finds that 44% say it will be a long time before the nation’s economy recovers. Smaller percentages say either […]
Overview Publics around the world believe the global balance of power is shifting. China’s economic power is on the rise, and many think it will eventually supplant the United States as the world’s dominant superpower. However, China’s increasing power has not led to more positive ratings for the People’s Republic. Overall, the U.S. enjoys a […]
Public views of Barack Obama today are very different from those of George W. Bush at about this point in his second term. Obama’s job rating is in positive territory, while Bush’s tilted negative. But a look at the one-word descriptions of the two men finds some common ground. Most notably, the word incompetent appears high on the one-word list for each.
America’s struggles with race and racism are never completely out of the news. But it is hard to remember when a series of stories have given this issue such resonance, whether in the rulings of the Supreme Court on affirmative action and voting rights, a tense trial in a Florida courtroom and even the racially insensitive comments of a celebrity chef.
The Obama administration is stepping up its game in dealing with climate change. Such moves echo widespread public concern about global warming outside the United States.
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted June 12-16, 2013 among a national sample of 1,512 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (758 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 754 were interviewed on a cell phone, including […]
Overview In a second term marked by a series of controversies and little legislative success, President Obama’s job approval rating has nonetheless remained fairly steady. Currently, 49% approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president while 43% disapprove. That is little changed from a month ago, before the NSA surveillance controversy and […]
On Wednesday, Barack Obama returns to Berlin, home to one of the more dramatic moments from his first presidential campaign. In July 2008, speaking beneath the city’s 200-foot-tall Victory Column, Obama pledged to heal the transatlantic divisions that had erupted during then-President George W. Bush’s time in office. “The walls between old allies on either […]
Today marks four years since a newly elected President Barack Obama spoke to a packed, enthusiastic audience of students at Cairo University, calling for “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” Four years later, much has changed in Egypt, but anti-Americanism persists.
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