Are there any data on what this holiday shopping season is going to look like from a retail perspective?
This past weekend marked the traditional beginning of the holiday shopping season. The retail industry, together with stock market analysts, are eagerly watching the behavior of millions of consumers in order to get a preliminary feeling of what the overall retail season will bring.
Although the weekend's news reports carried the usual stories about mobs lined up early on Friday morning waiting for stores to open, it will be some time before analysts can assess the relative success of the holiday shopping season. That's particularly true in today's shopping environment, as consumers become more likely to shop online from the comfort of their own homes, making it harder to measure precise levels of spending.
Retail sales almost always increase during the last two months of the calendar year -- the period that is often used as a surrogate for holiday shopping. The sales increase during these two months is partially caused by population increase and inflation. Therefore, it is assumed that there will be an increase each year when compared with the previous year. The issue of interest is whether that increase is above, below, or at about the usual average.
Each year, Gallup asks shoppers to estimate how much they will spend on Christmas gifts. This year's mid-November estimate -- $730 -- is roughly the same as the estimate measured at the same time last year -- $734. Thus, this early indicator suggests that the 2004 holiday shopping season will be neither spectacular nor a bust. A mathematical analysis suggests that this stability in the year-to-year estimate should be correlated with an average or typical year-to-year increase in spending of about 4% to 5%.
The most recent holiday shopping estimate ties in with Gallup's November consumer confidence reading, which shows a mild uptick in positive expectations about the economy, but no change in consumers' ratings of current economic conditions.
Gallup will measure consumer holiday spending expectations again in early December. Typically, Americans' estimates of their spending get larger as Christmas gets closer.
How much of a political issue is abortion going to be in the months ahead?
NBC News' Meet the Press attracted considerable attention on Sunday when four ministers -- Al Sharpton, Richard Land, Jerry Falwell, and Jim Wallis debated religion, moral issues, and politics. Land and Falwell are conservative, evangelical religious leaders, Sharpton is much more liberal, and Wallis is considered to be a moderate.
Abortion was one of the key topics discussed. Falwell said, "I wouldn't vote for my mother if she were pro-choice." Land called Roe v. Wade "a horrendous judicial overreach," and said President George W. Bush should appoint strict constructionists as justices and appeals court judges who would overturn the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
Gallup polling in 2002 found that 6 in 10 Americans did not want the Roe decision to be overturned. More recently, in 2003, Americans said they believed the Roe decision had been a good, rather than a bad thing for the country, by a 53% to 30% margin. Republicans, perhaps surprisingly, split equally in their responses to this question, with 43% saying Roe had been a good thing for the country and 43% saying it had been a bad thing.
An Associated Press survey released this past weekend shows that a majority of Americans (59%) would want any new Supreme Court justice appointed by Bush to uphold Roe v. Wade. Thirty-one percent favor appointing a justice who would overturn the ruling.
That's not to say that a majority of Republicans, or Americans in general for that matter, are comfortable with abortion. They are not. Only 24% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all circumstances, meaning that 75% want abortion to be either restricted or banned. Only 19% of Americans want abortion to be totally illegal.
Still the argument that Republicans (and Bush supporters) overwhelmingly want Roe overturned or want abortion made illegal does not jibe with existing public opinion data.
Are Americans generally optimistic about the elections planned in Iraq for late January, or not?
News reports indicate that the government of Iraq is determined to keep the planned election date of Jan. 30, even though there has been significant pressure from Sunni politicians in that country to delay the election.
The American public has little direct knowledge of the fast-changing political situation in Iraq. But when asked in a recent poll to assess the probability of the election being held as scheduled, 51% of Americans said they think it will, while 42% think it won't. Still, a little more than half of Americans said they believe that the people of Iraq will accept the results of the election as legitimate.
At the same time, Americans have decidedly mixed opinions about the United States' chances of establishing a stable, democratic government in Iraq. Forty-six percent of Americans say that the United States will succeed, while 49% say that it will not. Pessimistic as that sounds, Americans are still a little more hopeful than last April, when only 37% said that they believed the United States would be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.
In the most recent Gallup Poll, 47% of Americans said that the U.S. military involvement in Iraq was a mistake.
It's easy to assume that almost every American is on a diet these days. Is that true?
No, many Americans think they should be on a diet, but relatively few actually are.
The issue of obesity was in the news this past week as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged that the effect of obesity on the death rate may not be quite as bad as previously indicated. The CDC reported earlier this year that obesity was soon going to become responsible for more deaths in the United States than smoking, but that conclusion was apparently based on faulty statistical calculations.
As far as the American public is concerned, obesity is the fourth most important health problem facing the country, after the cost of healthcare, healthcare access, and cancer.
Regardless of the precise relationship between obesity and mortality, there is no question that a significant number of Americans perceive themselves to be overweight, and that even more would like to lose weight.
Here are the facts, according to Gallup's November health poll. About 4 in 10 Americans believe that they are at least somewhat overweight, while a little more than half perceive that their weight situation is "about right." Perhaps not surprisingly, women are significantly more likely than men to believe they are overweight.
There is an interesting phenomenon at work in the American culture, however, which seems to drive a significant number of Americans to believe that they should be losing weight, regardless of whether they perceive themselves as overweight. Sixty-two percent of Americans say they need to lose weight, compared with only 41% who say they are overweight. Again, there is a gender gap. Sixty-seven percent of women believe they should lose weight, compared with 56% of men.
Gallup's November poll revealed one final interesting finding regarding weight. Only 29% of Americans say they are seriously trying to lose weight at this time, including 34% of women and 23% of men.
All in all, these data yield a fascinating pattern. A significant majority of Americans say they should lose weight, even though less than a majority say they are really overweight, and even fewer are actively trying to lose weight.
The cover of this month's National Geographic magazine asks, "Was Darwin Wrong?" What do Americans think?
Public acceptance of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is well below the 50% mark, a fact of considerable concern to many scientists. The question Gallup asks about evolution asks respondents to choose between three alternatives: a) evolution is a scientific theory that has been well supported by evidence; b) evolution is just one of many theories and one that has not been well supported by the evidence; or c) don't know enough about it to say. Only 35% of Americans choose the first alternative, while 35% choose the second, and 29% choose the third.
Additionally, almost half of Americans believe that human beings were created by God essentially as they are today (that is, without evolving) about 10,000 years ago.
Respondents were given three alternative explanations for the origin of human beings: a) humans have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided the process; b) humans have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God played no part in the process; or c) God created human beings in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. A plurality -- 45% -- agree that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."
There are two possible reasons for this lack of support of the theory of evolution. One is the hypothesis that most Americans simply are not regularly exposed to scientific study of these matters, and are therefore less likely than scientists to agree that Darwin's theory has been well supported by the facts. The second possible explanation is that some Americans know about Darwin's theory, but are convinced it isn't valid because it contradicts a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the Bible.
Indeed, about a third of Americans are biblical literalists, believing that the Bible is the actual word of God, true on a word-for-word basis. For these people, the story of human creation in the Bible must be true, and evolution cannot be true.
Do Americans have strong opinions about the possibility of significant turnover in the U.S. Supreme Court in the next several years?
Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist will not be returning to the court this year. Rehnquist, who is 80, has thyroid cancer. In addition to Rehnquist, two other justices have had bouts with cancer, and four are in their 70s or 80s.
The aging Supreme Court has raised two issues of note. First, Bush will almost certainly have an opportunity to nominate at least one new justice during his second term (and most likely more than one). Second, the current practice of justices serving a lifetime term, leaving the court only when they die or resign, has come into question.
A recent Gallup Poll found that despite the highly touted polarization of America as evidenced by the recent presidential election, 61% of Americans are somewhat or very confident that Bush will "make good choices to replace justices who leave the U.S. Supreme Court."
In terms of the second issue, an Associated Press poll released this weekend found that 60% of Americans favor a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices (the question did not specify what that age would be). Thirty-nine percent said they do not favor a mandatory retirement age.