60% Trust Business Leaders More Than Government To Create Jobs
President Obama argued strongly in his State of the Union speech last night for a bipartisan effort to create jobs, but most Americans think the best thing government can do is get out of the way.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 60% of Adults think decisions made by U.S. business leaders to help their own businesses grow will do more to help create jobs in America than decisions made by government officials. Just 24% say decisions made by government officials to help the economy grow will do more. Sixteen percent (16%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Yet while 79% of Republicans and 58% of adults not affiliated with either of the major political parties think decisions by business leaders will do more to create jobs, Democrats are evenly divided on the question.
In earlier surveys, most Americans have expressed more confidence in the decisions of U.S. business leaders than in those of government officials when it comes to the overall economy.
But only one-in-three Americans (34%) say the government should do nothing at all if people can’t find work after an extended period of time. Thirteen percent (13%) say the government should just hire them, while 28% think taxpayers should pay for their retraining. Another 13% favor extending their unemployment benefits indefinitely.
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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on January 24-25, 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.
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