DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03827
title: New York Times New York City Poll, June 2003
title: Archival Version

description: This special topic poll, conducted June 6-10, 2003, was
undertaken in order to assess respondents' opinions of the long-range
view for New York City, the city's economic and financial status, and
social issues affecting the city. Respondents were asked to give their
opinions on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, his overall job
performance, his handling of the city budget and economy, whether he
payed too much attention to Manhattan at the expense of the other
boroughs, whether the Bloomberg administration had made significant
progress balancing the budget, the effect Mayor Bloomberg had on the
economy, and how much of the blame for the poor economy should be
attributed to Mayor Bloomberg. Respondents were asked how
knowledgeable they were of Mayor Bloomberg's budget plans, whether
they approved of George Pataki's performance as governor and his
handling of New York City's budget problems, whether they approved of
Joseph Bruno's performance as State Senate Majority Leader and the New
York State legislature's handling of New York City's budget problems,
how much of the poor economy should be attributed to Governor Pataki,
how much of the responsibility should be attributed to former mayor
Rudolph Giuliani, and how much of the responsibility should be
attributed to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Views were
sought on whether respondents planned to live in the same place, a
different place within New York City, or outside of New York City in
four years, whether within the last year New York City had improved,
worsened, or stayed the same, the overall condition of New York City,
whether the city's economy was improving, worsening, or not changing,
whether compared to one year ago, the city's economy was better,
worse, or the same, whether respondents worried that within the next
12 months they or a family member would lose their jobs, the severity
of the current economic situation, and whether the city's economic
situation affected day-to-day life, and if so, what its greatest
effect was given the city's economic situation. Respondents were asked
whether the best course of action would be to raise taxes, reduce
services, or borrow money. If respondents thought raising taxes was
the best solution, they were queried on which taxes should be raised
and if they thought reducing services was the best solution, they were
queried on what services should be reduced or cut. Information was
gathered on whether city service reductions or city employee layoffs
would affect the respondents' families, whether certain cuts in
services would be bad for the city, which city services should not be
cut or reduced, which one city service should not experience cuts or
reductions, if at all possible, whether income tax increases for
individuals and couples making $100,000 and $150,000, respectively,
were reasonable, whether raising the sales tax to 8.5 percent was
reasonable, and whether increasing property taxes by 18.5 percent was
reasonable. Opinions were gathered on whether city employees were
doing enough to help the city, whether city employees should pay a
greater percentage of their health insurance, whether the city work
week should increase from 35-37 hours to 40 hours, whether there
should be decreases in vacation and holiday time for city employees,
whether future pension benefits for city employees should be reduced,
and whether placing video-slot machines in off-track betting parlors
would be beneficial or harmful. Further questions addressed an
increase of homeless individuals in the last few months, the ban on
smoking in bars and restaurants, an increase of bus and subway fares
to $2 and whether the increase had an effect on respondents,
respondents' knowledge of Mayor Bloomberg's non-partisan election
proposal, whether New York City should have non-partisan elections,
the name of the respondent's staterepresentative, and the name of the
respondent's state senator. Background variables include age, sex,
education, ethnicity, length of residence in New York City, condition
of respondent's finances, smoking status, employment status, union
status, whether the respondent was a city employee, residential status
(renter or homeowner), voting status, whether the respondent was the
parent or guardian of a child under 18 living in the same residence,
whether children under 18 were enrolled in public, private, or
parochial school, whether the respondent voted in the 2001 mayoral
election, and if so, whether the respondent voted for Mark Green or
Michael Bloomberg, borough of residence, religious orientation,
marital status, political orientation, political ideology, and
household income.
description: A variation of random-digit dialing using primary sampling
units (PSUs) was employed, consisting of blocks of 100 telephone
numbers identical through the eighth digit and stratified by
geographic region, area code, and size of place. Within households,
respondents were selected using a method developed by Leslie Kish and
modified by Charles Backstrom and Gerald Hursh (see Backstrom and
Hursh, SURVEY RESEARCH. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,
1963).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: New York Times New York City Poll, June 2003
description: Adult population of New York City aged 18 and over having
a telephone at home.
description: (1) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR
staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this
collection in essentially the same form in which they were
received. When appropriate, documentation has been converted to
Portable Document Format (PDF), data files have been converted to
non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to
ensure respondents' anonymity.The ASCII data file may have been replaced if the previous version was formatted with multiple records per case. A frequency file, which contains the authoritative column locations, has been added to the collection.