41% Favor 10% Pay Cuts for State Workers, 42% Oppose

Though three out of four Americans nationwide acknowledge that their state is in a budget crisis, they are evenly divided when it comes to cutting the salaries of state workers.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 41% favor a 10% pay cut for all state employees in order to help reduce spending in their state. Forty-two percent (42%) are opposed to the idea while 17% more are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

A year ago, two-thirds of U.S. voters supported cutting the federal payroll by 10% over the coming decade in order to reduce spending. 

Seventy-four percent (74%) of adults nationwide now say their state is having a budget crisis, down slightly from last year.  In July 2009, 59% said their home state was in a budget crisis. 

Just 15% don’t think their state is having a budget crisis while 12% more are not sure.

However, one in five adults (20%) says the budget situation in his or her state is better than it was a year ago, a nine-point improvement from last October. Most (62%) still believe their state’s budget situation is worse than it was while 14% think it’s about the same.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on October 27-28, 2011 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.