“Americans continue to cite dissatisfaction with government above all others as the United States’ top problem,” reports Gallup polling analyst Megan Brenan, citing a new survey from the pollster that places the faulty government in first place.
In second place: concern over racial tensions in the nation, followed by immigration and the lack of unity in America.
Some worries had equal weight. The state of health care, the economy and North Korean threats were tied for fifth place, followed by unemployment, the moral decline of the nation and natural disaster relief — all tied for sixth place.
The news media did not fare so well in the survey. On the top 10 list of problems, the media was ranked in seventh place — tied with concerns about crime and violence, and environmental or pollution issues. Americans, the poll found, worry less about drug use, poverty, terrorism, inflation, federal debt, the threat of war, the judicial system and national security than they do about the state of the media.
There is one aspect which could be considered a positive in the research, however. Concerns about the economy — which include worries about unemployment, taxes, the gap between rich and poor and the federal budget deficit — are the lowest in a decade.
Seventeen percent of the respondents said that was a concern, compared to highs of 86 percent when the survey was conducted in 2009, and 72 percent in 2013. The wide-ranging Gallup poll asked respondents to cite for themselves what worried them; the final list included just under 50 different concerns.
Who can solve our problems? The poll found that Democrats were cited by 41 percent of the respondents while 34 percent put their confidence in Republicans and 25 percent were undecided.
The survey of 1,022 U.S. adults was conducted September 6-10.
