Optimism in an Era of Growing Inequality and Economic Difficulty

Despite an extended period of economic difficulty, Pew Research Center pollsters Andrew Kohut and Michael Dimock show that Americans’ core values and beliefs about economic opportunity, and the nation’s economic outlook, remain largely optimistic and unchanged. There is also little evidence that economic class is becoming a greater factor in […] Read more »

The American Dream, Downsized

… Led by Obama’s chief pollster, Joel Benenson, the campaign had spent 2011 examining Americans’ views on economic security and the American Dream. They concluded that something fundamental had changed. It used to be political gospel that a candidate couldn’t risk talking about inequality because such a stance was so […] Read more »

Big shifts on role of government

Hours before the first debate between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, a showdown that will focus on domestic issues, a new national survey indicates that Americans have undergone some major changes on the basic questions concerning the size and role of the federal government. [cont.] CNN Read more »

Struggling To Advance

The road still rises. But the climb is steeper, and the falls are more frequent. That’s the view of prospects for upward mobility in the modern American economy that emerges from the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll. Although an overwhelming majority of Americans still define the U.S. as “the […] Read more »