Collecting Data

Once in a while I'm going to put up back-to-back posts, or even back-to-back-to-back posts encouraging you to drop by one of my stop-off places. This is one of those rare cases where indeed this post and the one preceding it names the same blog and the same blogger the primary source to which you should refer.

No doubt y'all have noted my covetous appreciation for the writing prowess of one Mr. John Savage. Lord knows I wish I had his talent. I guess some of us are just resigned to the fate of working for everything we get, eh John? kidding, kidding. ;)

Nonetheless, I'd like to direct your attentions to John's blog once again because I noted this morning during my stopover that he'd put up a poll which asks a very specific and interesting question, while providing ample answers for you to choose from. I encourage you to stop by and take the poll because John is collecting data for a specific purpose, the explanation for which may be had in John's reply to my comment to the post announcing it.

In the meantime I'm going to see if I can figure out a way to make this easier on myself. lol

-DW

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2/3 to 3/4 of Americans Communists, depending...

Anyone who knows me well at all knows that I don't care for polls and surveys and such. I think it's a rare occurance indeed when a survey consisting of five hundred or a thousand people polled hits upon a single, much less numerous sentiments consistent with the general sense of a citizenry topping 270 million.

I don't think it's necessarily a purposeful misleading that these poll-takers are engaging in, but I don't necessarily believe it isn't either. It all depends on the reasoning behind the particular poll taken, who's conducting it, what kinds of questions are asked, what kinds of answers are provided, and so on and so forth. All of these factors weigh into the final outcome of the survey in question.

I admit that I'm not well versed in the science of poll taking. And I suppose that there are methods to the madness that I'm probably overlooking. But I think it's hard to make a case for polls basing their findings on such an insignificant proportion of the citizenry as the one the story below cites...

WASHINGTON (AP) --

Income differences in the U.S. are too stark, and the government should provide jobs and training for those having a tough time, according to majorities in a national poll released Thursday.

About seven in 10 said discrepancies between income levels are too large, a sentiment voiced by nearly two-thirds of those from households earning at least $80,000 a year, the survey said. Three-fourths of people earning less than $80,000 agreed.

Eight in 10 said the gap between the rich and the middle class has worsened over the last 25 years, said the survey by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis.

The poll comes in the early stages of a 2008 presidential campaign in which several Democratic candidates have discussed a widening distance between the country's rich and poor.
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has made ''two Americas'' one of his favorite themes. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois have also touched on the topic.

In the survey, 58 percent said large pay differences help get people to work harder. Yet 61 percent said such discrepancies are not needed for the country to prosper.

Two-thirds said the government should make sure there is a job for everyone who wants one. Small majorities said it should provide jobs for people who can't find private employment, increase federal training programs and redistribute money with high taxes on the wealthy.

Even so, nearly two-thirds said it is not the government's responsibility to ease income differences.

The survey was conducted from June 18 to July 2 and involved telephone interviews with 500 adults nationally. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

My question is simply this: How do these surveys show such disparate results on different, yet obviously related questions asked of the same individuals; why are there such inconsistencies shown in the answers given? Are people truly that fickle about what they believe?

The results to which I refer in this particular survey are of course those showing very even percentages (58% and 61% respectively) of people who apparently believe on the one hand that 'large pay differences help get people to work harder,' yet on the other that 'such discrepancies (in pay I'm assuming) are not needed for the country to prosper.' Huh!?....prosperity has no relationship to incentive, yet it does; productivity is, or it isn't to be associated with success? I'm getting more confused by the second.

Other results from this survey I'm referring to are the ones indicating that two out of three people surveyed believe the government should 'make sure there is a job for everyone who wants one,' and nearly two out of three people surveyed believe that 'it's not the government's responsibility to ease income differences.' Say what!? On the one hand it IS the government's responsibility to provide jobs for those unemployed 'against their will;' on the other hand, and at the same time, it IS NOT the responsibility of government to do anything about the income gap between the, what, 'over-employed,' and the 'under-employed?'

Okay, obviously I'm utterly confused now. And I admit that the more surveys I read, the more confused I get, as a general rule. That probably accounts for most of why I'm simply not a survey/poll kinda fella. The results have never made much sense to me, and I think, based in part on these and others I've had the misfortune to read, they probably never will.

The only thing I've ever found to be consistent in the published results of most polls I've read is the overall tendency for them to show inconsistencies in the thinking of the individuals polled. In other words, they're consistently inconsistent. That fact in itself is enough for me to shy away from putting any stock whatsoever in poll and survey results of virtually any kind, on questions of virtually any kind.

Having taken a few polls myself, I can tell you that my personal experience is that the questions are always either too vaguely asked (not specific enough), or the answers provided are too few or too vague in themselves; or both. In fact, I've given up right in the midst of taking a poll due to these very factors before. I have no interest whatsoever in answering questions wherein someone has already predetermined for me that my answers must fall within a certain range of responses carefully chosen and framed by...someone.

So what is my point, you may be asking? I guess my main point is that I don't like polls, and I want you to know it. Other than that I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on the upside to the poll - only a 'small majority' of Americans (according to the survey) are true believers in the principles of communism. We can chalk that up to the triumph of capitalism I guess.

-DW

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Survey Says?...

Here's an AP story that's just got me utterly confused:

NEW YORK (AP) -- The percentage of Americans who consider children ''very important'' to a successful marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more now cite the sharing of household chores as pivotal, according to a sweeping new survey.

The Pew Research Center survey on marriage and parenting found that children had fallen to eighth out of nine on a list of factors that people associate with successful marriages -- well behind ''sharing household chores,'' ''good housing,'' ''adequate income,'' a ''happy sexual relationship'' and ''faithfulness.''

In a 1990 World Values Survey, children ranked third in importance among the same items, with 65 percent saying children were very important to a good marriage. Just 41 percent said so in the new Pew survey.
Chore-sharing was cited as very important by 62 percent of respondents, up from 47 percent in 1990.

The survey also found that, by a margin of nearly 3-to-1, Americans say the main purpose of marriage is the ''mutual happiness and fulfillment'' of adults rather than the ''bearing and raising of children.''

The survey's findings buttress concerns expressed by numerous scholars and family-policy experts, among them Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of Rutgers University's National Marriage Project.

''The popular culture is increasingly oriented to fulfilling the X-rated fantasies and desires of adults,'' she wrote in a recent report. ''Child-rearing values -- sacrifice, stability, dependability, maturity -- seem stale and musty by comparison.''

Virginia Rutter, a sociology professor at Framingham (Mass.) State College and board member of the Council on Contemporary Families, said the shifting views may be linked in part to America's relative lack of family-friendly workplace policies such as paid leave and subsidized child care.

''If we value families ... we need to change the circumstances they live in,'' she said, citing the challenges faced by young, two-earner couples as they ponder having children.

The Pew survey was conducted by telephone from mid-February through mid-March among a random, nationwide sample of 2,020 adults. Its margin of error is 3 percentage points.
Among the scores of questions in the survey, many touched on America's high rate of out-of-wedlock births and of cohabitation outside of marriage. The survey noted that 37 percent of U.S. births in 2005 were to unmarried women, up from 5 percent in 1960, and found that nearly half of all adults in their 30s and 40s had lived with a partner outside of marriage.
According to the survey, 71 percent of Americans say the growth in births to unwed mothers is a ''big problem.'' About the same proportion -- 69 percent -- said a child needs both a mother and a father to grow up happily.

Breaking down the responses, the survey found some predictable patterns -- Republicans and older people were more likely to give conservative answers that Democrats and younger adults. But the patterns in regard to race and ethnicity were more complex.

For example, census statistics show that blacks and Hispanic are more likely than whites to bear children out of wedlock. Yet according to the survey, these minority groups are more inclined than whites to place a high value on the importance of children to a successful marriage.

The survey found that more than 80 percent of white adults have been married, compared with about 70 percent of Hispanics and 54 percent of blacks. Yet blacks were more likely than whites and Hispanics to say that premarital sex is always or almost always morally wrong.
Among those who have ever been married, blacks (38 percent) and whites (34 percent) were more likely than Hispanics (23 percent) to have been divorced.

Delving into one of the nation's most divisive social issues, the survey found that 57 percent of public opposes allowing gays and lesbians to marry. However, opinion was almost evenly divided on support for civil unions that would give same-sex couples many of the same rights as married couples.

Asked about the trend of more same-sex couples raising children, 50 percent said this is bad for society, 11 percent said it is good, and 34 percent said it made little difference.

On the Net:
Pew Research Center: http://people-press.org//

Y'know, I have to wonder...ummm, I tell ya what, if you all would care to participate, I'd like to hear from you on what you believe some of the problems with this story are. I have a couple of my own ideas about why the survey results came out as they did, but I wonder what your thoughts are. And I can't wait to read 'em.

-DW

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