October 17, 2018

Republicans think poor don't work hard enough

Pew Research - Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (63%) say the nation’s economic system unfairly favors powerful interests, compared with a third (33%) who say it is generally fair to most Americans, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. While overall views on this question are little changed in recent years, the partisan divide has grown.

For the first time since the Center first asked the question in 2014, a clear majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (57%) now say the economic system is generally fair to most Americans. As recently as the spring of 2016, a 54% majority of Republicans took the view that the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests.

And while wide majorities of Democrats and Democratic leaners have long said that the U.S. economic system unfairly favors powerful interests, the share who say this has increased since 2016 – from 76% then to 84% today. Majority of Republicans now say the U.S. economic system is generally fair

Democrats and Democratic leaners are more likely to say the reason someone is poor generally has more to do with circumstances beyond their control (69%) than with a lack of effort (18%). Among Republicans and Republican leaners, a larger share says a person is poor more because of a lack of effort (48%) than because of circumstances beyond an individual’s control (31%).

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