SOTU Overstates Economic Progress
Posted by admin paragon on Feb 6, 2015 in National Poll | No Comments
The current state of the economy is one of the most widely discussed issues in the United States, being chosen by voters as the number one issue on their mind when casting a vote for federal office by a 27 point margin. A total of 44% of respondents chose “economic issues” as their top set of issues in our latest poll, with “security issues” coming in second at 17%. Strong pluralities regardless of partisan identification are in agreement, with 43% of Democrats, 44% of Independents and 45% of Republicans choosing “economic issues.”
In his State of the Union remarks on January 20, 2015, President Obama commented on the current state of the economy, saying, “Today, thanks to a growing economy, the recovery is touching more and more lives.” We asked over 1,500 registered voters about their thoughts on the current state of the economy and what their initial reaction to this statement was. A majority of respondents (52%) believe President Obama “has overstated the health of the economy,” including majorities of both men (55%) and women (50%). Majorities of voters regardless of party believe that the President has overstated the health of the economy including 56% of Democrats, 51% of Independents and 50% of Republicans. Even a majority of Millennials believe the health of the economy is overstated by that remark (51%). Only 16% of respondents believe the President’s statement is “100% right” and that “more and more people are getting back to work and getting ahead.”
This poll was conducted from January 22-25, 2015, among a national sample of 1,586 registered voters. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of registered voters based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, region, annual household income, home ownership status and marital status. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Crosstabs: 150103 SOTU National Poll – CROSSTABS
Charts: 150103 SOTU National Poll – CHARTS