Company News · October 21, 2016

Americans Agree That the Economy is Rigged, But For Whom?

By Edison Research

In this divisive election year, Democrats, Republicans and Independents actually agree on one idea – that the economy is rigged in favor of certain groups. But who is it rigged to benefit? We dug into this in our most recent Marketplace-Edison Research poll.

Among those who think that the economy is rigged, the vast majority of all political persuasions think it is rigged to benefit the rich, politicians, and corporations. But what about other groups, like whites or minorities? Is the economy rigged to benefit them? That is where we start to see stark differences. Sixty-two percent of Clinton supporters think the economy is rigged to benefit white people, whereas only 21% of Trump supporters share that belief. Conversely, 56% of Trump supporters think the economy is rigged to benefit minorities while only 19% of Clinton supporters think so. The supporters of the two candidates disagree on other beneficiaries as well, as can be seen in the nearby graph.

The “rigged” concept seems to be having a moment, with both candidates talking about it on the campaign trail in different ways. Regardless of who wins, the next President of the United States will face a country that thinks the economy is unfairly benefiting certain groups.

mp-emr-poll-rigged-economy

 

Marketplace-Edison Research Poll Methodology
The Marketplace Edison Research Survey is a national survey of Americans ages 18 years and older.  A total of 1,036 respondents were interviewed with 501 interviews conducted by telephone and 535 interviews conducted online.  Among the telephone interviews, 250 were conducted via a landline phone and 251 interviews conducted via a cell phone so that we could achieve the proper proportion of coverage of households in the United States that do not have a landline phone. The landline and cell phone sample of phone numbers and the email addresses for the online survey were provided by Survey Sampling International (SSI). The telephone interviews were conducted from October 1st – 8th, 2016. The data was weighted to match the most recent United States population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau for age, gender, race and region of the country.

 

About Edison Research
Edison Research conducts survey research and provides strategic information to a broad array of clients, including Activision, AMC Theatres, Disney, Dolby Laboratories, Google, Gulf News, the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau, Pandora, Samsung, Siemens, Sony, Time Warner and Yahoo. Edison Research works with many of the largest American radio ownership groups, including Bonneville, Emmis, Entercom, CBS Radio and Radio One. Another specialty for Edison is its work for media companies throughout the world, conducting research in North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Edison Research is the sole provider of election exit poll data for the National Election Pool comprised of ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC and the Associated Press. Edison is also the leading provider of consumer exit polling and has conducted face-to-face research in almost every imaginable venue. All of Edison Research’s industry studies can be found on the company’s website at www.edisonresearch.com and can be downloaded free of charge.

About Marketplace
The Marketplace® portfolio of programs are produced and distributed by American Public Media®, one of the largest producers and distributors of public radio programming in the world.  Marketplace®, Marketplace Weekend®, Marketplace Morning Report® and Marketplace Tech® are currently broadcast by nearly 800 public radio stations nationwide and heard by more than 12 million weekly listeners.  Marketplace® has the largest broadcast audience of any business news program, on radio or television, in the country.  Marketplace® programs also have a robust digital audience, with more than 5 million podcast downloads and stream requests every month, on apps like iTunes, Slacker and TuneIn.  Marketplace® programs are noted for their timely, relevant and accessible coverage of business, economics and personal finance, focusing on the latest national and international business news, the global economy and wider events linked to the financial markets.  For more information on Marketplace® programs, visit marketplace.org.  For more information on American Public Media, visit americanpublicmedia.org.

Source: Data are copyright Nielsen Audio and StreamGuys. Data are estimates only.

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