The FINANCIAL -- Faced with continuing high unemployment, voters feel strongly that the
government needs to launch a job-creating program, but they still have
far more faith in business leaders to create new jobs.
They give mixed reviews to President Obama’s new plan to create jobs for military veterans.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters now feel it is at least somewhat important for the government to launch a new program designed to create jobs. That’s up six points from April of last year and includes 57% who say it’s Very Important. Just 20% think it’s not very or not at all important for the government to start a program aimed at job creation.
But 64% of voters believe decisions made by U.S. business leaders to help their own businesses grow will do more to create jobs than decisions made by government officials. Only 27% think decisions made by government officials will create more jobs. These findings are consistent with previous surveys including one in late January after the president called in his State of the Union speech for a bipartisan government effort to create jobs.
The president’s latest proposal, made on Friday, calls for giving companies tax credits of up to $9,600 for each young military veteran they hire. Fifty percent (50%) favor such a program that supporters estimate will cost $120 million and create 25,000 new jobs. Thirty-two percent (32%) oppose the proposal, while another 18% are undecided about it.
The Rasmussen Employment Index, which measures workers’ perceptions of the labor market each month, fell nearly eight points in July to the lowest level since March. Only 18% of working Americans now report that their firms are hiring, while 24% say their firms are laying off workers. It has been nearly three years since the number reporting that their firms are hiring has topped the number reporting layoffs.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 7-8, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
In early June, nearly one-out-of-three Americans predicted that the unemployment rate will be higher a year from now.
Democrats are more strongly supportive of a new government jobs program than Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party are. But sizable majorities of all three groups think such a program is important.
Yet while 64% of Democrats like the president’s new jobs plan for young veterans, just 45% of GOP voters and 42% of unaffiliateds are in favor of it.
Perhaps in part that’s because 81% of Republicans and 67% of unaffiliated voters think decisions made by business leaders are more likely to create new jobs than those made by government officials. Democrats, however, are almost evenly divided between the two.
Those who work in the private sector are more enthusiastic about a new government jobs program than government employees are. But government workers like the president’s new plan for veterans more than those who work for private companies do.
The Political Class is more supportive of both a new government jobs program in general and the president’s latest plan than Mainstream voters are. Sixty-four percent (64%) of the Political Class thinks decisions made by government officials will do more to create jobs than decisions made by business leaders, but 70% of those in the Mainstream have more confidence in business leaders.
The president in a meeting last December with top U.S. business leaders urged them to use some of their ample cash reserves to create new jobs, and most voters think that’s a good idea. But they draw the line at the government making the businesses spend their money that way.
In a survey earlier this year, 11% of Americans said the government should hire people who can't find work after a lengthy period, and another 15% believed the government should extend their unemployment benefits indefinitely. Sixty-three percent (63%), however, didn't see a long-term government solution to chronic unemployment.
Just 22% of voters now support government programs that give special treatment when hiring to women and minorities.
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