DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04515.v1
title: New York Times Economic Security Poll, December 1996
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded December 8-11, 1996, is part of a
 continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on
 the current presidency and on a range of other political and social
 issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President
 Bill Clinton and his handling of the presidency and the economy.
 Respondents also were queried on what they thought was the most
 important problem the country faced and if things were going in the
 right or wrong direction. Many of questions dealt with issues
 pertaining to jobs including whether the respondent was currently
 employed, how worried the respondent felt that they or someone in
 their household could be out of work and looking for a job within the
 next 12 months, their job satisfaction, whether they were working an
 extra job, and if they had been forced to work reduced hours or take a
 pay cut. Respondents also were asked detailed questions concerning job
 layoffs including if they had been laid off in the last five years,
 from how many different jobs they had been laid off, if anyone else in
 the household had experienced a layoff, and if the respondent knew
 someone who had been laid off in the last 15 years. The respondents
 also were asked questions relating to new jobs that they had taken
 because of being laid off and whether they felt that layoffs and job
 loss were a temporary problem or if it would be a permanent problem in
 the United States. They were then asked whether the government should
 step in to do something about job loss, and if either the Republican
 party or Democratic party would be better suited to stop layoffs and
 loss of jobs. Many questions also dealt with the respondents'
 financial situation. They were asked if they had a savings account,
 shares in the stock market, or retirement savings and what their plans
 were for holiday spending. Demographic variables include sex, age,
 race, education level, household income, employment status, voter
 registration status, political ideology, party affiliation, marital
 status, number of children in the household, and whether respondents
had a child who had entered the 9th grade starting in September 1996
description: The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be
used in analyzing the data.
description: Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within
 households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the
 household who last had a birthday and who was home at the time of the
interview.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: New York Times Economic Security Poll, December 1996
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with
telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
description: telephone interview(1) The data available for download are not weighted
 and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis. (2)
 Additional information about sampling, interviewing, and sampling
 error may be found in the codebook. (3) The variable AREACODE was
 recoded for confidentiality. The previously blanked variables
 EXCHANGE, LASTFOUR, and NAME were also recoded to appropriate 9
 series. (4) The variables EXTRA1, EXTRA2, EXTRA3, EXTRA4, and EXTRA5
 were removed from the dataset because no data nor explanation for
 these variables was available. (5) The original data file contained
 three records per case and was reformatted into a data file with one
record per case.