81% Know Someone Out of Work and Looking for a Job
Eight-out-of-10 Americans continue to know someone who is unemployed and currently looking for work. Most adults also remain pessimistic about the future job market.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 81% of Adults know someone who is out of work and looking for a job. Although that finding is up five points from October, it's generally consistent with findings going back to August 2009. Only 13% don’t know someone who is jobless and currently searching for one. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The national unemployment rate is 9.5%, and only 25% of Americans think unemployment will be lower a year from today. That’s down 11 points from late January when 36% felt that way. Twenty-six percent (26%) say unemployment will be higher in a year's time, while a plurality (41%) says it’ll stay about the same.
Only 16% of adults believe the job market is better than it was a year ago, down eight points from the previous survey. Thirty-six percent (36%) think the market is worse than last year, while 44% say it’s about the same.
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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on March 25-26, 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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