Myths and Misunderstandings About Public Opinion Toward Social Security: Knowledge, Support, and Reformism.#
Lawrence R. Jacobs
University of Minnesota
(612) 625-3384
Robert Y. Shapiro
Columbia University
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- We reviewed hundreds of public opinion survey items on Social Security and found that common assumptions about the public's thinking toward Social Security are often based on half-truths or simply wrong.
- The public's knowledge about Social Security is incomplete and in some cases inaccurate, but the public is far more knowledgeable than commonly assumed. Where the public is wrong, its views often reflect inaccurate information from policy makers or journalists.
- Knowledge is not evenly distributed in America but is concentrated among those who are the most successful -- the affluent and better educated.
- Third Millennium's startling report that found more confidence in the existence of UFOs than Social Security's future is fabricated and tells us nothing new about public opinion. Americans have had low confidence in Social Security since the 1970s because of the disproportionate media coverage of the program's imminent crisis and the public's distrust of government in general. The Third Millennium report illustrates a persistent pattern of misrepresentation of public opinion by journalists and political activists.
- The public's low level of confidence in Social Security does not appear to be weakening program's support, which remains high and little changed. Americans support Social Security not because it satisfies a simple calculation of its "money's worth" but because it provides an insurance against the risk of low income in retirement and a protection from bearing the burden of financially drained parents.
- Balanced survey items reveal large opposition to privatization proposals and mixed reactions to some of the incremental solutions to the program's long term financial shortfall.
- The future course of public opinion will continue to be influenced by Americans' low regard for government and the information conveyed by journalists and policy makers. Politicians will fight to win over public opinion by launching competing campaigns to emphasize the most favorable components of their favorite proposals. Journalists must be vigilant to provide the arguments of each side and to communicate an accurate picture of public opinion itself -- a job that they had faltered on during recent policy debates on entitlements.
# Prepared for the 10th Annual Conference of the National Academy of Social Insurance, January 29-30, 1998, National Press Club, Washington D.C. Supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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