86% Believe Individuals Make Their Own Success
Most Americans do not believe it’s possible for anyone in the United States to work hard and get rich, but they feel overwhelmingly that good decisions and hard work are likely to lead to a middle-class lifestyle.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 88% of American Adults think it’s at least somewhat likely that someone who works hard and makes good decisions will enjoy a middle-class lifestyle, including 38% who say it’s Very Likely. Just 10% believe this is not very or not at all likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
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This national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on February 23-24, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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