Pew Research Center's Blog, page 34

Negative Views of New Congress Cross Party Lines

The new Republican-led Congress is drawing harsh reviews from the public. Just 23% of Americans say congressional Republicans are keeping the promises they made during last fall’s campaign.

Americans are aging, but not as fast as people in Germany, Italy and Japan

At least one-in-five people in Japan, Germany and Italy are already aged 65 or older, and most other European countries are close behind.

Family Support in Graying Societies

America is turning gray, with the share of people ages 65 and older expected to rise more than 50% by 2050 – a trend that may burden more families. But Germany and Italy are already there, with a fifth of their population in that age range.

5 facts about the minimum wage

While the idea of raising the minimum wage is broadly popular, efforts to do so at the national level have stalled. We gathered key facts looking at the issue.

Americans’ Views on Privacy and Security

Many Americans want control over their personal information and freedom from observation during the activities of their daily lives, but they are not confident that the government agencies or businesses that collect data about them can keep that information private and secure.

More Americans are using social media to connect with politicians

Overall, 16% of registered voters follow candidates for office, political parties, or elected officials on a social networking site.

Early Views of the 2016 Presidential Field

The Republican field for 2016 is much more crowded than the Democratic field. But Republicans are more positive about their candidates now than at comparable points in the past two presidential campaigns.

Growing share of U.S. immigrants have no religious affiliation

One-in-five immigrants identified themselves as unaffiliated in 2014, an increase of 4 percentage points from the 16% who said so in 2007.

For young Americans, unemployment returns to pre-recession levels

More than half (50.9%) of the nation's nearly 8 million unemployed for April are ages 16 to 34 – even though that group makes up just over a third of the civilian labor force.

Americans’ ideal family size is smaller than it used to be

Half of Americans (48%) say two is the ideal number of children for a family to have, reflecting a decades-long preference for a smaller family over a larger one.