The Economy
Initial reports from retailers indicate that sales were brisk over the crucial Thanksgiving weekend. Despite these positive signs, Gallup data show that the public's estimate of their total holiday spending this year is less than last year, although our last survey before Thanksgiving showed a slight increase in projected spending that may portend better news for anxious retailers.
Most general consumer confidence indices were up modestly in November, compared to particularly dismal October readings. Additionally, and in contrast to this year, the 2001 holiday season came at a time when consumers' optimism about the economy was rising rapidly. Thirty percent of Americans rated the economy as getting better in November 2001; that number rose to 49% by January of this year. We don't see this type of sharply increasing economic optimism developing this year. New Gallup Poll estimates of consumer confidence will be available next week. These will help provide a more precise estimate of the pattern of the public's attitudes about economic conditions as Christmas approaches.
Internet Shopping
Over the last several years, there has been a continual rise in the percentage of Americans who say they will use the Internet to shop for holiday gifts. More than one-fourth of Americans are at least somewhat likely to shop on the Internet, up from a meager 10% four years ago. It's not shocking to discover that younger people are more likely to shop online than those who are older, but the magnitude of the differences is very substantial. Thirty-five percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say they are likely to shop online this season, compared with a very modest 6% of those aged 65 and older.
Religious Preference
Many people refer to this time of year as a "holiday" season rather than one specifically focused on Christmas, although our most recent data continue to show that the United States is an overwhelmingly Christian nation. About 85% of Americans identify with some form of Christianity -- including 25% who are Catholics and 53% who are Protestants of some sort. The rest of Americans report various non-Christian religions or no religion at all. About 2% are Jewish, 0.3% are Muslim (although estimates of the total Muslim population in the United States have become quite controversial), and 8% of Americans do not identify with any religion.
Henry Kissinger
Last week, former Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger was appointed by President Bush to head a commission whose mission is to look into the causes of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Kissinger has ranked in the top 10 of Gallup's "most admired men" list on 11 separate occasions over the years, putting him in 13th place among all men for the years between 1948 and 2001 (Billy Graham has been on the Top Ten list more often than any other man during this time period). Gallup last measured the public's rating of Kissinger's image in a 1994 study conducted for the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. At that point, 56% of Americans rated Kissinger on the positive end of a 100-degree thermometer scale, 21% put him in the middle, and just 14% rated him at the negative end.
The 2004 Presidential Race
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts announced over the weekend that he was taking the first (tentative) steps toward a run for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. Our latest Gallup measure of the laundry list of possible Democratic candidates shows that Kerry is doing relatively well -- tied for second place as registered Democratic voters' choice for their party's nomination, along with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Sen. (and 2000 vice-presidential candidate) Joe Lieberman. Each gets 12% of the Democratic vote -- still significantly behind Al Gore, who gets 36%.
A recent Time/CNN poll showed that Kerry has a favorable image among those who rate him. But more than six in 10 Americans don't know enough about Kerry to have an opinion of him either way. Based on history, this low name identification is not an insurmountable obstacle at this point in the game. Neither Jimmy Carter nor Bill Clinton were very well known a year or two before they captured their party's nominations. Kerry's challenge is to create a positive image among Democrats who get to know him better over the next year as the January 2004 New Hampshire primary draws closer and closer.
Union Support
The union that represents United Airlines' mechanics has scheduled a Thursday vote on the airline's proposal that the mechanics give back $700 million in concessions to help keep United out of bankruptcy court. United pilots and flight attendants have already made concessions. The American public remains generally sympathetic to unions. In recent years, approval of unions has averaged about 60%, while about 30% of Americans have reported having a negative image of unions. Opinions about unions are highly related to political orientation. Democrats approve of unions by a 74% to 19% margin, while Republicans disapprove by 52% to 41%.
Clergy and The Catholic Church
The Boston Globe reported over the weekend that the Boston archdiocese is considering filing for bankruptcy. That move would be a way of avoiding the impact of hundreds of legal suits brought by former parishioners who claim sexual abuse on the part of archdiocese priests and who allege subsequent cover-up by archdiocesan officials. New Gallup data show that just 18% of Catholics say they have a great deal of confidence in the bishops' ability to handle the problems resulting from the sexual abuse controversy, another 42% say they have some confidence, and 40% say they have not much confidence or no confidence at all.
Only 52% of Americans now give the clergy "very high" or "high" marks for honesty and ethics, down significantly from last year. Nurses have the highest perceived ethical standards of all professions tested in this year's annual update of the honesty and ethics in professions, while telemarketers have the lowest. Full results of the latest survey will be released on Wednesday of this week.
AIDS
Last Sunday was World AIDS Day, commemorated at a time when just 8% of Americans mention AIDS as the nation's No. 1 health concern. That's significantly below the 25% who mention healthcare costs, the 21% who mention cancer, and the 14% who mention access to healthcare. From 1987 to 1999, more Americans named AIDS as the nation's top health problem than any other health issue, including the startlingly high 68% who mentioned it as the No. 1 problem in 1987. The responses this year don't necessarily indicate that Americans are not concerned about AIDS, but rather that AIDS has moved off the front page and out of the active consciousness of many Americans.
Tolerance of Homosexuality
The Supreme Court has announced that it will consider a Texas case involving a law that makes it illegal to engage in homosexual relations. Gallup's most recent update finds that 43% of Americans continue to say that homosexual relations should be illegal. That percentage is down from previous years -- 57% said that homosexual relations should be illegal as recently as 1988. One of the biggest predictors of attitudes toward homosexuality is age. Younger Americans hold much more tolerant attitudes about gay and lesbian activity than do older Americans.