Poverty Survey

NPR/Kaiser/Kennedy School Poll

Poverty in America

As shown, some questions were asked only of subsets of respondents (e.g., people who said they knew about the new welfare law). The tables identify whether the results reflect percentages of the overall population or percentages of a subset. In some cases results for particular income-level subgroups are not shown because there were too few respondents on which to report. Some demographic questions are not shown, but all questions are presented in the order in which they were asked. An asterisk (*) indicates a response of less than 1%.

III. Perceptions of Poor People

10. Do you think that most poor people in the United States are people who work but can't earn enough money, or people who don't work?
(Results for total respondents)

	Work	Don’t work	Don’t know
Total	61	34	5
<100%	70	28	2
100-200%	61	33	6
200%+	60	34	5

11. Do you think poor people in this country are better off, worse off, or about the same as other Americans in terms of health care?
(Results for total respondents)

	Better off	Worse off	About the same	Don’t know
Total	13	61	21	5
<100%	14	56	27	2
100-200%	14	53	27	6
200%+	13	63	19	5

12. In general, do you think poor people have higher, lower, or about the same moral values as other Americans?
(Results for total respondents)

	Higher	Lower	Same	Don’t know
Total	8	21	67	5
<100%	19	22	57	2
100-200%	7	23	65	5
200%+	6	20	68	5

13. Do you think that poor people find it hard to get work, or do you think there are jobs available for anyone who is willing to work?
(Results for total respondents)

	Hard to get work	Jobs available	Don’t know
Total	27	69	4
<100%	44	50	6
100-200%	29	68	3
200%+	25	72	3

14. Which of the following statements comes closer to your own views? Poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return, or poor people have hard lives because government benefits don’t go far enough to help them live decently.
(Results for total respondents)

	Poor people have it easy	Poor people have hard lives	Don’t know
Total	46	43	11
<100%	31	59	10
100-200%	37	51	12
200%+	50	39	10

15. I’d like to know what income level you think makes a family poor. Would you consider a family of four that makes $10,000 a year to be poor? How about (INSERT NEXT AMOUNT)? Would you consider a family of four making (INSERT AMOUNT) to be poor?
(Results for one-half of total respondents)

(Percentage answering YES to each level.)

	Total	<100%	100-200%	200%+
Not $10,000 ^†	5	12	9	3
$10,000	95	88	91	97
$15,000	88	75	83	91
$20,000	64	39	50	71
$25,000	42	25	30	46
$30,000	20	12	14	22
$35,000	12	7	7	13
$40,000	6	4	3	7
$45,000	4	3	2	5
$50,000	2	2	1	2

^{†This represents respondents who said they did
not consider a family of four making $10,000 a
year to be poor or said they did not know. That is, 4% of total
respondents said that they would not consider a family of four making
$10,000 a year to be poor, and 1% either did not know or refused to answer
(DK/REF). 9% of those earning <100% of the federal poverty level said
they would not consider a family of four making $10,000 to be poor, and 3%
said DK/REF. 8% of those earning 100-200% of the federal poverty level
said they would not consider a family of four making $10,000 a year to be
poor, and 1% said they did not know. 3% of those earning 200%+ of the
federal poverty level said they would not consider a family making $10,000
a year to be poor.

16. I'd like to know what you think is the
least amount of money a family of four can get by on in a year.
Do you think a family of four could get by on $10,000 a year? How about (INSERT NEXT AMOUNT)? Could a family of four get by on (INSERT AMOUNT)?

(Results
for one-half of total respondants)

(Percentage answering NO to each
level.)

Total

<100%

100-200%

200%+

$10,000

91

75

90

93

$15,000

80

53

69

85

$20,000

50

26

32

57

$25,000

29

11

15

34

$30,000

14

5

6

17

$35,000

8

2

3

9

$40,000

4

*

2

4

$45,000

2

*

1

3

$50,000

1

*

--

1
17. Compared with 10 years ago, do you think
it is easier today or harder today for a person to start out poor, work
hard, and to get out of poverty?

(Results for total respondents)

Easier

Harder

Same

Don’t know

Total

44

48

NA

7

<100%

34

62

NA

4

100-200%

34

59

NA

7

200%+

48

44

NA

8

18. From what you know, what portion of poor
people in this country do you think are African American? About a tenth,
about a quarter, about half, or about three-quarters?

(Results for total respondents)

A tenth

A quarter

Half

Three-quarters

Don’t know

Total

12

33

31

10

14

<100%

9

26

36

20

10

100-200%

9

31

33

10

17

200%+

13

34

30

9

14

View Previous Page

View Next Page

Methodology

The results of this project are based on a nationwide telephone survey conducted in English and Spanish between January 4 and February 27, 2001, among a random representative sample of 1,952 respondents 18 years of age and older. There was an oversample of 546 respondents who were identified as having an income of less than 200% of the federal poverty level. Overall the sample included 294 respondents having an income of less than 100% of the federal poverty level, 613 having an income of between 100% and 200% of the federal poverty level, and 1,045 with an income above 200% of the federal poverty level. The results for all groups are weighted to reflect the actual distribution in the nation. The field work was conducted by ICR/International Communications Research. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points for total respondents, plus or minus 7.5 percentage points for those with an income of less than 100% of the federal poverty level, plus or minus 5.4 percentage points for those with an income of between 100% and 200% of the federal poverty level, and plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for those with an income above 200% of the federal poverty level. For results based on subsets of respondents the margin of error is higher.

When interpreting the data, keep in mind that because this was a telephone survey, it under-represents groups less likely to have telephones, such as people with very low incomes.

This page and all contents are Copyright © 2001 by National Public
Radio, Washington, D.C.}