Pew: Public's Frustration with Congress Could Cost Republican Incumbents in 2012

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports that "discontent with Congress has reached record levels, and the implications for incumbents in next year’s elections could be stark." Two-thirds of respondents say that "most" congressional members should be voted out of office in 2012, the highest percentage on record. And Americans are not very forgiving of their own; 33 percent say they do not want to see their own representatives reelected. According to Pew, this "matches the all-time high recorded in 2010, when fully 58 members of Congress lost reelection bids – the most in any election since 1948."

Survey results suggest that the American public is particularly frustrated with the Republican Party, and that Republican incumbents stand to lose the most from the public's discontent. Pew comments: "A record-high 50% say that the current Congress has accomplished less than other recent Congresses, and by nearly two-to-one (40% to 23%) more blame Republican leaders than Democratic leaders for this." Americans are critical of Republican leaders' political approach: "By wide margins, the GOP is seen as the party that is more extreme in its positions, less willing to work with the other side to get things done, and less honest and ethical in the way it governs. And for the first time in over two years, the Democratic Party has gained the edge as the party better able to manage the federal government."

Americans are not putting all the blame on Republicans, of course; they appear to be dissatisfied with Congress as a whole. Democrats survive with more approval than Republicans, but Americans still do not view them very favorably: "Just 31% approve of how Democratic congressional leaders have performed." Still, comparisons between the two parties do indicate that congressional Democrats are at the very least less-disliked than Republicans. For example, while a minority of Americans approve of Democratic congressmen, an even smaller percentage (21%) say they approve of the job Republican leaders have done. In addition, the Democratic Party has retained more support from its base: "While Democrats approve of the job their party’s leaders are doing by a 60% to 31% margin, only 49% of Republicans approve of the GOP leaders in Congress are doing, while 44% disapprove."

The negative Republican attitude differs from the recent historical trend; in recent election cycles, voters from the political party with a House majority say that a majority of congressional members should be reelected. Now, however, "seven-in-ten Republicans say most members of Congress should be replaced, as do 73% of independents and 60% of Democrats."

Americans largely single out current congressional members, and not the political system in which they serve, as the problem.  Pew writes: "In assessing Congress, 55% of the public says they think the system can work fine, it’s the members that are the problem. Just 32% say they think most members have good intentions but the political system is broken. The balance of opinion is virtually identical across party lines."

Independents do not express positive views toward either political party, but they are especially critical of Republicans. "By a 54% to 30% margin they say the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, is more extreme in its positions, and they are twice as likely to label the Republicans than the Democrats as the less honest and ethical party (42% vs. 21%)."

If congressional members--particularly Republicans--hope to hold onto their jobs come 2012, it seems they will have a lot of work to do.

U.S. Diabetes Rate Reverses Course, Declines in 2011

Recent survey data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index indicates that the U.S. diabetes rate has decreased in 2011, reversing an upward trend that characterized the previous two years. In the third quarter of this year, 11 percent of Americans reported having diabetes, up from 10.6 percent in this year's second quarter, but still "among the lowest levels recorded since 2009." According to Gallup, "The diabetes rate was below 11% throughout 2008, but then began to increase in 2009 and 2010." 11.5 percent of Americans reported having diabetes before January of this year.

The declining diabetes rate mirrors a decline in the percentage of Americans who are obese. Gallup comments: "The obesity rate, which has a well-established relationship with the most common form of diabetes -- Type 2 -- also declined slightly in the second and third quarter of this year, with somewhat lower levels in 2011 compared with 2010."

As the percentage of Americans who are obese declines, so should the percentage of Americans with Type 2 diabetes. "Gallup has found that obese Americans are nearly three times as likely to report having been diagnosed with diabetes as those who are not obese, and that states with the highest obesity rates have much higher diabetes levels than those with the lowest obesity rates."

There is no cure for diabetes, so any decrease in its prevalence should reflect "fewer new cases and a reduction in old cases through mortality." If Americans continue to lose weight, it is likely that a smaller percentage of them will get Type 2 diabetes, and the U.S. diabetes rate will continue to fall.

Hardest-Working Countries in 2011

As the end of the work year approaches, the Economist’s daily chart highlights employee holiday entitlements around the world using Mercer data.  Of the 19 countries shown, Canada gives the fewest holidays per year, with a statutory minimum of 10 days and with a further 9 public holidays.  China is close behind, with 2 more total holidays per year, followed closely by the United States, who comes in 14^th with 25 total holidays per year.  The economically unstable countries of Spain and Greece rank 4^th and 2^nd, with 36 and 37 days off respectively.  Austria’s 38 holidays per year in 2011 tops the list.

For a further examination of additional employment figures, such as sick days, view the Economist’s related videographic.

U.S. marriage rate hits a record low

The Pew Research Center released an analysis of new 2010 U.S. Census data on marriage, which shows a record low in the percentage of married U.S. adults.  Only 51% of adults ages 18 and over reported being married, down from 72% in 1960.  Over the same 50-year period, divorce or separation has increased from 5% to 14%, and the percent never married increased from 15% to 28%.

The most telling trend in terms of marital trends can be found in the young adult population.  Twenty percent of those ages 18 to 29 reported being married, just over one third of the percent married 50 years ago (59%).  In addition, the median age of first marriage has increased by roughly six percent over this time period, up to roughly 28 years old.

Though Pew does not definitively explain the declining trends in marriage, they cite the rising share of young adults enrolled in college and “fallout from the Great Recession” as potential contributing factors.  Pew also cites a U.N. report on marriage in developed nations between the 1990s and 2000s, quoting: “this was ‘due in part to an increasing acceptance of consensual [cohabiting] unions as a replacement for marital unions,’” which may also contribute to declining percentages in the United States.

FiveThirtyEight: Gingrich Leads Five Plausible GOP Candidates in Iowa

In a recent FiveThirtyEight blog post, Nate Silver shared a preview of his polling-based forecasts for the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, the official versions of which he plans to release in a few days. The statistical analysis is based on state-by-state polling; Silver writes that although more objective and subjective factors could be taken into account, "building a well-calibrated forecast from the polls is challenging enough given the uncertainties inherent in primary polling, and so that’s what we’ve decided to focus on rather than anything fancier."

The polling-based analysis for Iowa has Newt Gingrich projected to win 25.1% of the vote, followed by Ron Paul, with 20.7%; Mitt Romney (15.6%); Rick Perry (12.3%); and Michele Bachmann (11.4%); and both Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman Jr., who are projected to garner under 10 percent of the vote. In his blog post, Silver explains the three factors used to calculate the projections: a weighted polling average, which emphasizes more recent polling as being a better predictor of probable primary results; the reallocated average, "which takes undecided voters and allocates them among the viable candidates;" and a process Silver calls momentum, which "looks at the near-term trend in a candidate’s polling and assigns a small bonus or penalty based upon it."

Silver warns, however, that these projections "are not very precise, because primary polling is not very precise." He tries to quantify this uncertainty, providing both confidence intervals for each candidate's projections and their win probability, "which combines the vote projections and the uncertainty together to estimate how likely each candidate is to win the caucuses." Gingrich leads with an estimated 49.6% probability, followed by Paul, with 28.2%; Romney (10.6%); Perry (5.2%); and Bachmann (4.1%).

According to Silver's analysis, "Although Mr. Gingrich still has the lead, Iowa looks to be fairly wide open with as many as five plausible winners.

Income Inequality Continues to Rise in OECD Countries

A recent OECD report shows that the wealth gap in most rich countries continues to grow wider, consistent with an upward trend during the past few decades. The Economist blogged: "The Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality in which zero corresponds to everyone having the same income and one means the richest person has all the income, increased by almost 10% from 0.29 in 1985 to 0.32 in 2008, for working-age people in OECD countries."

Changes in wages have benefited the top 1% of earners most, but relative gains are not limited to them, as "the pay of the richest 10% of employees has increased at a far greater rate than that of the poorest 10% of employees." Gains in technology, because they "disproportionately benefit...high-earning workers," have contributed to increases in income inequality. High earners tend to marry other high earners, which only exacerbates this growing inequality. In addition, "governments are doing less to redistribute wealth than they have done in the past."

The report, however, shies away from identifying globalization as the cause of increased income inequality. Instead, as summarized by the Economist, it argues that "one of the many reasons for the rise in income inequality is that more people are in work now (or at least they were before the financial crisis hit) compared with the 1970s."

Live bird transportation pushes The Twelve Days of Christmas over $100,000

USA Today and the Associated Press report that rising costs of live bird transportation and general price increases have pushed the cost of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to an all-time high.  For the last 28 years, PNC Wealth Management has released the PNC Christmas Price Index, which is formed using the current prices of the 364 items mentioned in the 12 verses of the traditional carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”  The assortment of pipers piping, lords-a-leaping, ladies dancing, maids-a-milking, swans-a-swimming, geese-a-laying, gold rings, calling birds, French hens, turtle doves, and partridges in pear trees costs $24,263, and the total of all repeated items in the twelve verses totals $101,119, a 4.4% from the 2010 Christmas Price Index.

Online orders cost $39,860, a 64% increase from in-store prices.  The difference in price is largely due to an increase in the cost of shipping live birds, according to managing executive of investment Jim Dunigan.  Dunigan summarizes this year’s findings, stating: “the story in general is wages are still a very sluggish part of this economy,” noting that the core rate of increase is much less than the 9.2% increase in 2010.

PNC provides an interactive website to explore price changes in these well-known items (image provided above).