Monday, March 28, 2005
Tweet[IWS] AEI: ATTITUDES ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM (Updated 25 March 2005]
IWS Documented News Service
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Institute for Workplace Studies
School of Industrial & Labor Relations
Cornell University
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American Enterprise Institute (AEI) for Public Policy Research
AEI PUBLIC OPINION STUDY
ATTITUDES ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM (Updated 25 March 2005]
What do Americans think about the health of the Social Security system and proposals to reform it? This AEI Public Opinion Study looks at how different pollsters have approached the issue. It provides historical data and includes trends on aspects of the debate from major pollsters.
New Social Security Polls: March 21-25
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050325_SOCIALSECURITY8.pdf
[full-text, 51 pages]
Several pollsters updated their questions on personal accounts this week. In the March 17 to 21 Pew poll, 44 percent favored "a proposal which would allow younger workers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in private accounts, which might include stocks and bonds," down from 54 percent in December 2004. In the new poll, support barely outweighed opposition (44 to 40 percent). Pew reports that the more people say they know about the President's approach, the more opposed they are. The ABC News/Washington Post question, which has been asked since May 2000, shows more stability in attitudes and even a slight uptick in support since December. In their March poll, 56 percent supported "a plan in which people who chose could invest some of their Social Security contributions in the market," and 41 percent were opposed. In December 2004, those responses were 53-44 percent.
The President's approval ratings on handling Social Security are, in all but one recent poll, lower than his approval ratings on any other issue. The one exception to this pattern was provided by the new Newsweek poll which showed that fewer people approved of his handling of the deficit (29 percent) than approved of the way he was handling Social Security (33 percent).
While the President isn't doing well on the issue at this point, there is no evidence that Democrats in Congress are doing better. The Pew poll reports that approval ratings for the Democrats in Congress are slightly lower than for the Republicans (37 to 39 percent).
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