If it's in the News, it's in our Polls. Public opinion polling since 2003.

POLITICS

30% Favor Federal Government Temporarily Hiring One Million People

A proposal has been made for the federal government to spend $46 billion to hire a million people on a temporary basis in areas including childcare, eldercare, education, public health and housing, construction and maintenance, recreation and the arts. Voters aren’t exactly on board with this idea, as many believe that most of the temporary jobs created would be wasteful projects.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that just 30% favor the federal government hiring one million people on a temporary basis. Just over half (51%) oppose this idea while another 19% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

While most Republicans (71%) and voters not affiliated with either major party (55%) oppose this proposal, 54% of Democrats favor it.

These results come at a time when the Rasmussen Employment Index shows that workers’ perceptions of the labor market have fallen to the lowest level measured in one year. Just 17% of workers report that their firms are hiring while 24% say lay-offs are coming.

If the government hired a million workers, voters fear that most of these temporary jobs would be wasteful “make-work” projects. Most voters (56%) say that outcome is at least somewhat likely that, including 33% who say it’s Very Likely. Taking the opposite view, a third (33%) say it’s not likely the new jobs would be wasteful projects, with just 10% who say it’s Not At All Likely.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 29-30, 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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