On September 23, the religion, policy and politics project at Brookings and PRRI held a discussion of PRRI’s fifth annual American Values Survey (AVS), a large national, multi-issue survey on religion, values and public policy. Co-moderated by Brookings Senior Fellows E.J. Dionne Jr. and William A. Galston, the event featured […] Read more »
Americans Struggling with Economic Insecurity and Concerned about Inequality
Despite the overall improvement in the U.S. economy, a majority of Americans have a decidedly gloomy outlook on their personal financial situation and the economic future of the country heading into the midterm elections, finds the 2014 American Values Survey. … The fifth annual look at religion, values and public […] Read more »
Americans know surprisingly little about their government
Americans show great uncertainty when it comes to answering basic questions about how their government works, a national survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has found. … While little more than a third of respondents (36 percent) could name all three branches of […] Read more »
Americans’ Trust in Executive, Legislative Branches Down
Americans’ trust in each of the three branches of the federal government is at or near the lows in Gallup’s trends, dating back to the early 1970s. Americans’ trust in the legislative branch fell six percentage points this year to a new low of 28%. Trust in the executive branch […] Read more »
Black and White Attitudes Toward Police
The death of 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has reopened the subject of black Americans’ relationship with the police, and more generally the differences in the way blacks and whites look at the criminal justice and civil rights situations in […] Read more »
The Court, Not Congress, Is Obama’s Biggest Obstacle
As President Obama maneuvers to advance his agenda around unrelenting opposition from House Republicans, he is accelerating a dynamic that could reshape the power balance between the White House, Congress, and the courts long after he’s gone. Continuing a pattern followed by George W. Bush, Obama is increasingly implementing his […] Read more »