Fifty-six percent (56%) of American voters say the government is doing too little to combat poverty in this nation. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% believe it is doing too little while 15% say the government’s level of anti-poverty effort is about right.

At the same time, 47% of American voters believe that anyone who is willing to work hard can get themselves out of poverty. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree.

Sixty-one percent (61%) believe that anyone who wants to work hard can find a job in the United States. Twenty-seven percent (27%) disagree on that point.

Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans believe there would be less poverty in the United States if immigration laws were enforced and there were fewer illegal aliens hired. Thirty-two percent (32%) disagree.

As former North Carolina Senator John Edwards uses his Presidential campaign to shine a spotlight on poverty issues, 37% of voters consider poverty a very severe problem in the United States. Edwards is currently a distant third among those seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination.

There are substantial partisan divides on these questions.

By a 72% to 11% margin, Democrats say the government is doing too little to combat poverty. Republicans are much more evenly divided—37% say the government is doing too little while 31% say it is doing too much.

Republicans, by a 69% to 19% margin, believe that anyone who wants to work hard can get themselves out of poverty. Democrats are more evenly divided on that topic—37% of those in Edwards’ party say that anyone can work their way out of poverty while 47% disagree.

On the question of immigration, 56% of Republicans believe that enforcement of immigration laws would reduce poverty. Only 23% of the GOP faithful disagree on that point. Democrats are evenly divided—39% say enforcing the immigration laws would reduce poverty and 40% disagree.

On most questions in this survey, those not affiliated with either major party gave responses more in line with Democrats. However, on the immigration topic, the unaffiliateds leaned more in line with Republicans.

Overall, voters continue to trust Democrats more than Republicans on most key issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports. Unaffiliateds trust Democrats more on eight of ten issues. The only exceptions are national security and immigration.

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