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%.

I. General Background

1. What do you think are the two most important issues for the government to address?
(Results for total respondents. Some items do not add up to the NET totals because of rounding. Totals do not add up to 100% because respondents gave up to two answers to the questions.)

	Total	<100%	100-200%	200%+
Health care (NET)	21	14	22	21
Health care/health-care reform	15	10	13	16
Medicare	4	1	5	3
Prescription drug costs are too high	3	2	5	3
Other health care	1	*	*	1
Economy (NET)	26	30	24	26
The economy	11	10	4	13
Better wages/increase minimum wage	2	5	3	2
Unemployment/create more jobs	4	7	8	2
Poverty/more help for the poor/homeless	6	6	6	6
Welfare/welfare reform	3	4	4	3
Housing/better housing for low income	1	2	1	1
Other economical	*	1	*	*
Governmental/political issues (NET)	20	14	15	22
The election process/ revamping the voting process	2	2	1	2
National budget/deficit /reducing the nation’s deficit	4	3	2	4
Foreign policy/foreign relations	3	3	2	4
World peace/peace in the Middle East	2	*	1	2
Military/national defense/strengthen our country’s defense	6	2	5	7
Campaign finance reform	1	*	1	1
Honesty in government	1	1	1	1
Keep government out of our lives	1	1	--	1
Other governmental/political issues	2	2	3	2
Lawlessness (NET)	12	12	11	12
Crime/violence	5	6	5	5
Drug problems	4	6	3	3
Gun control/gun laws	3	1	3	3
Racism/civil rights	1	1	2	1
Other unlawful	*	1	*	*
Education/school system/better schooling	28	21	29	29
Taxes/tax reform	20	10	18	22
Social Security	12	12	14	12
Miscellaneous (NET)	25	29	25	25
Environmental issues/lack of concern for the environment/pollution	3	1	2	4
Utility rates/gas, electric, and oil rates	3	4	3	3
Abortion issues	4	2	4	4
Moral values	2	3	2	2
Immigration/illegal alien issues (general)	2	5	4	1
Senior citizens/more help for the elderly	3	5	3	3
Energy crisis	1	1	1	1
Childcare/childcare reform	1	1	2	1
Other	6	7	4	6
Don’t know	9	17	11	8
Nothing	1	*	*	1

2. How big a problem is poverty in our society today? Is it a big problem, somewhat of a problem, a small problem, or not a problem at all?
(Results for total respondents)

	BIG/SOMEWHAT PROBLEM			SMALL /NOT A PROBLEM
	NET	Big	Somewhat	NET	Small	Not	Don’t know
Total	88	55	33	11	8	2	1
<100%	91	67	24	7	5	2	2
100-200%	90	63	27	9	7	2	*
200%+	87	52	35	12	9	2	1

3. How satisfied are you with the way the economy is going these days - very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, not very satisfied, or not satisfied at all?
(Results for total respondents)

	SATISFIED			NOT SATISFIED
	NET	Very	Somewhat	NET	Not very	Not at all	Don’t know
Total	70	14	57	29	19	10	1
<100%	57	10	47	41	22	19	2
100-200%	62	10	52	37	23	14	1
200%+	74	15	59	26	17	8	*

4. How would you rate your own financial situation today? Would you say it is excellent, good, only fair, or poor?
(Results for total respondents)

	EXCELLENT/GOOD			FAIR/POOR
	NET	Excellent	Good	NET	Only fair	Poor	Don’t know
Total	50	7	43	49	38	11	*
<100%	16	1	15	84	44	40	--
100-200%	24	2	22	75	58	18	*
200%+	60	9	52	39	33	6	*

5. Would you say you are doing well financially primarily because of your own effort and abilities, because of good luck, or because of things other people have done for you?
(Results for respondents who rate their own financial situation as excellent or good)
[Total = 836. <100%, 100-200%, 200%+ = too few respondents to report on]

	My own efforts and abilities	Good luck	Things other people have done for me	Don’t know
Total	86	3	9	2

6. Would you say you are not doing so well financially because of something you yourself have done or failed to do, because of bad luck, or because of things other people have done to you?
(Results for respondents who rate their own financial situation as only fair or poor)
[Total =1105, <100% =253, 100-200%= 465, 200%+ =387]

	Something I have failed to do	Bad luck	Things other people have done to me	Don’t know
Total	43	22	20	15
<100%	34	29	21	16
100-200%	41	24	20	15
200%+	46	20	20	15

4/5/6 Summary Table

	Total
Excellent/Good (NET)	50
Because of my own efforts and abilities	43
Because of good luck	2
Because of things other people have done for me	4
Fair/Poor (NET)	49
Because of something I have done or failed to do	20
Because of bad luck	10
Because of other things other people have done for me	10
Don’t know	*

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Methodology
The NPR/Kaiser/Kennedy School Survey about Poverty in America is part of an ongoing project of National Public Radio, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Representatives of the three sponsors worked together to develop the survey questionnaire and to analyze the results, with NPR maintaining sole editorial control over its broadcasts on the surveys. The project team includes:

From NPR: Marcus D. Rosenbaum, Senior Editor/Special Projects.

From the Kaiser Family Foundation: Drew Altman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mollyann Brodie, Vice President, Director of Public Opinion and Media Research; and Anne E. Steffenson, Research Associate.

From the Kennedy School: Robert J. Blendon, a Harvard University professor who holds joint appointments in the School of Public Health and the Kennedy School of Government; Stephen R. Pelletier, Research Coordinator for the Harvard Opinion Research Program; and John M. Benson, Managing Director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program.

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.