DOI: 10.3886/icpsr27805.v1
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll, September 2009
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded September 19-23, 2009, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way Barack Obama was handling the presidency, the situations in Iraq and in Afghanistan, health care and the economy, whether they thought the country was on the right track, how they would rate the condition of the national economy and whether they thought the economy would get better. Respondents were also asked questions about the economic recession, whether they believed the stimulus package had made the economy better, whether the stimulus package would make the economy better in the future, and whether it was acceptable to raise the deficit to create jobs and stimulate growth. Several questions about health care were included that asked respondents how much change was needed in the health care system, how changes to the health care system would affect the Medicare program, whether they favored government administered health insurance plans, how satisfied they were with the quality of health care they were receiving, whether they were satisfied with their health care costs, whether they believed health care coverage could be increased without increasing the budget deficit, whether fixing the cost or providing coverage for the uninsured had the higher priority, and whether the respondent would consider public health care that anyone could join at any age. Other topics that were covered included, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, respondents' opinion of Michelle Obama, how the federal government should use taxpayer's money, how the deficit should be handled, personal finances, and job security. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, marital status, education level, household income, political party affiliation, political philosophy, perceived social class, religious preference, whether the respondent considered themselves to be a born-again Christian, and voter registration status and participation history.
description: The data contains a weight variables (WGHT) that should be used in analyzing the data. According to the CBS News Web site, the data were weighted to match the United States Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country. The data were also adjusted for the fact that people who share a telephone with others have less chance to be contacted than people who live alone and have their own telephones, and that households with more than one telephone number have more chances to be called than households with only one telephone number.
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. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard and land-lines and cell phones. 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: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll, September 2009
description: Persons aged 18 years and older living in households with telephones in the United States.
description: telephone interviewThe data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.The CASEID variable was reformatted in order to make it a unique identifier.A truncated value label in variable EDUC was corrected.This data collection was produced by CBS News, New York, NY.