A new public opinion poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press sends a pretty clear signal to the Obama Administration. Economy, Jobs and Terrorism are the three biggies for most Americans.
As Barack Obama takes office, the public’s focus is overwhelmingly on domestic policy concerns – particularly the economy. Strengthening the nation’s economy and improving the job situation stand at the top of the public’s list of domestic priorities for 2009. Meanwhile, the priority placed on issues such as the environment, crime, illegal immigration and even reducing health care costs has fallen off from a year ago.
Check out the chart accompanying the story from Pew. Global warming (in this frigid winter) has dropped to the bottom of the list.
And, although illegal immigration is low on people’s priority lists, I thought 41 % was still a fairly large number of people who place it as a high priority. The number would be greater if the public better understood immigrations connection to the top three concerns: Economy, jobs, terrorism.
Hint to groups like Numbers USA, keep educating the public about that connection!
See my post of two days ago about Obama and Immigration reform. Rahm Emanuel gets it—-it is all about jobs!