Unemployment jumped to 9.8 percent in a very disappointing November jobs report. Non-farm payrolls increased by only 39,000, and private jobs expanded by just 50,000. This is way below what the economy needs.
Despite the upcoming Republican takeover of the House, most voters are still not convinced Congress will actually cut government spending substantially over the next year. GOP voters are among the most doubtful.
As Congress wrangles over whether to continue funding unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks, Americans express skepticism about the need for benefits that last that long.
Despite Democratic resistance to extending the Bush tax cuts for those who earn $200,000 or more a year, most voters are optimistic that the tax cuts will be continued for all Americans.
A simple map of House gains in November 2010 is quite revealing.
Americans are receptive to a proposal by President Obama’s bipartisan deficit reduction commission to increase the level of income taxable for Social Security, but most don’t like the idea of raising the retirement age.?
Many Americans are getting into the Christmas spirit this holiday season but maybe not quite as many as last year.
Though the president’s bipartisan deficit reduction commission is exploring a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes to reduce the massive federal deficit, most voters continue to expect government spending to increase during the Obama years.
The Rasmussen Reports Consumer Index for the full month of November shows the highest level of economic confidence in more than two-and-a-half years. The Consumer Index monthly rating of 84.3 is the highest since February 2008 but is still well below the baseline month of October 2001, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
President Obama’s bipartisan deficit reduction commission is considering a radical overhaul of one of the most sacred of sacred cows – the income tax deduction on interest paid on home mortgages. Americans are narrowly divided when asked about possible ways to limit that deduction.
Sandwiched between the Democrats’ disappointing 2002 election cycle and their 2010 “shellacking,” the party made significant gains during the three, mid-decade intervening elections of 2004, 2006 and 2008. And nowhere were the party’s gains more impressive than in four states: Colorado, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia.
We always talk about "The American Dream" -- about living it, saving it, wondering what happened to it. Few bother to define it.
Most voters believe public release of U.S. secret and confidential documents hurts national security, and they consider the leaking of such information to be an act of treason.
Just 29% of Likely U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, November 28.
In November, 36.0% of American Adults identified themselves as Republicans; 34.7% considered themselves Democrats, and 29.3% were not affiliated with either major party. That’s the largest number of Republicans since February 2005 and the first time ever that Rasmussen Reports polling has found more people identifying as Republicans than Democrats.
Defenders of Mohamed Osman Mohamud are already arguing to the press that he was set up and in court that he was entrapped. Every state recognizes a defense that argues a defendant was "entrapped," but most of them define it narrowly, as do the federal courts.
Voters are strongly concerned about the impact of the latest dump of sensitive and secret U.S. data on the Internet by the WikiLeaks organization and think the U.S. government needs to do a better job protecting that kind of information.
When tracking President Obama’s job approval on a daily basis, people sometimes get so caught up in the day-to-day fluctuations that they miss the bigger picture. To look at the longer-term trends, Rasmussen Reports compiles the numbers on a full-month basis, and the results can be seen in the graphics below.
I suppose it is to be expected that the Great Recession should be accompanied by a sweeping national pessimism in which our purported leaders and commentators express historic despair, while the people and corporations mope about, convinced that the sun will not come up tomorrow.
Most Americans are in the decorating mood when it comes to the holiday season, but they still have work to do.
