51% of Americans are most worried about the economic threat from the pandemic

More of us are focused on the economic rather than the health effects of COVID-19 on our country.

Full Transcript:

Scott Rasmussen  0:07  

Good morning, Scott Rasmussen here. Welcome to my podcast: Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. We're wrapping up week one of the podcasts. Five days now under my belt. I've been writing the Number the Day for Ballotpedia, The Encyclopedia of American Politics, been writing it for more than three years. And it's been a lot of fun for me to expand into the podcast format. I hope you're enjoying it, too. Every day, we pick a number that I find interesting and then put it in the context and see what it tells us about the world around us. And by the way, all of the numbers that I talk about, all of the polling data, if you want to find the details you can do so at ScottRasmussen.com. I have the cross tabs there and other information. All of the numbers of the day are available at Ballotpedia.org and the podcast is always released at JustTheNews.com and wherever you get your favorite podcast. 

But today, we're going to look at a number dealing with the pandemic, the Coronavirus pandemic that has just dominated the nation's psyche for the last several months. And we're going to look at a tracking question I've been asking, the number is 51. And what it stands for is that 51% of voters now say that when they look at the threat from this pandemic, they're more concerned about the threat to the nation's economy than the health threat. This is the first time that more than 50% have said the economic issues are their top concern. Now, I'll be back right after this break to maybe talk about what that number means, but also to look at a theme that raises questions about what we should be measuring or how we can measure the nation's response to something as unprecedented as this pandemic. So I'll be back right after this.

Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm Scott Rasmussen. And the number today is 51. 51% of voters now say that the economic threat from the pandemic is greater than the health threat. At the same time, 43% have the opposite view, they say no, still the health threat is what worries them the most. These numbers represent a big change from where we were a couple of months ago. In late March, when I first asked this question, just 38% thought the economy was the biggest concern and 53% said the health issues were the biggest concern. By April and into mid-May, the numbers are pretty even. And over the last few weeks, I've seen concern about the economy growing and the relative concern about the health threat declining. 

But as I've been looking at that, you know, the question that keeps popping up in the back of my mind is how do you really measure progress or how do you measure the public reaction on a trend with something that's never happened before? You know, if I asked a polling question about how people rate the economy in a normal time, I can compare it to what people said in other presidential years, or is the economy getting better or worse? But we're far from a normal time. You know, obviously, where the economy is not doing great right now. But is it getting better or worse? And how do you even measure that? On the question of what worries people most about the pandemic? I've been thinking in the last couple of weeks that I need to add another category? It's not just 'are you worried more about the health threat or the economic threat?' A lot of people apparently aren't worried about either one right now. So, you know, we'd have to have to begin to factor that into the discussion. But I think there's something else even more fundamental going on, we don't know how to measure the progress, the recovery from this pandemic, again, because it's unprecedented. In the history of modern polling, we've never had an event like this. So, you know, actually, I'll give a personal example. I live in New York City. We've obviously been under some pretty severe lockdowns. And in the early days of the pandemic, my wife had a fever and was sick and couldn't do anything and couldn't leave, because of the obvious concerns. And she was locked into our apartment basically for about seven weeks. And one day, we got to go for a walk in Central Park. And on the one hand, she was excited to be out. But she was a little fearful because of all that was going on and because she had been sick. And then a little bit later, as circumstances change, we actually got to go out and have a drink together. No big deal. We literally just sat outside, had a drink and chatted to a few people. And it was like an incredible first date. Why? Because it was something that had been denied to us there was a euphoria that came from this excitement of actually being able to go out again. And as we go forward in the next couple of months, and as society reopens more, and as the economy picks up more and as people go back to work, we're going to measure lots of numbers, we're going to measure a lot. Well, you know, last week's job report said there were two and a half million net new jobs created. I don't know what the next one will be and these numbers are a little fuzzy because, again, we're dealing with some, you know, pretty earth-shattering experiences to dealing with our economy. But it's, and we'll ask polling questions about what concerns you or you know, or, or how well are we doing, is the worst behind us, those sorts of things. 

But the hardest thing to gauge will be the sense of how happy are you? How do you-- how are you feeling? We don't-- those things you can't put a number on. Now, I'm going to try and poll. I'm going to keep asking different ways and trying to explore it. But we won't have the typical trend lines. We won't have the, you know, well for the last seven years when this has happened, something else has followed, because it's so unprecedented. 

And the reason I'm going through all this you know, I love numbers. That's I'm a pollster. Numbers speak to me, I want to share with you the stories that I see in the numbers, but sometimes we have to recognize their limitations. And so when we have a poll like today that tells us that 51% of voters are now more concerned about the economic threat than the health threat, that tells us a little something. It tells us the tide has turned from a couple of months ago. But it doesn't really gauge the complete story. And you know, another part of the problem that we're starting to run into, is it on some of the questions about the pandemic. It's running into the political partisanship, you know, so somebody who says they want to reopen the economy more, while people think 'oh, you must be a Trump supporter,' somebody who says we need to be more cautious and continue to lockdowns, 'oh, you must be a Democrat.' So, we are getting some of those responses. 

Ultimately, though, the objective here is to try and understand how people are experiencing the pandemic and watching them in their daily lives and beginning to see what happens. The real numbers that will begin to tell us what's happening will be experiences like how many people are returning to their restaurants, and perhaps some other indicators that we'll have to evaluate in an entirely new way. So, it's a great challenge. It's a great time to be a pollster, in a sense, in that there's a challenge here, a new way to look at things. But it's also a difficult time again because we don't have that track record of what's been going on. It's so much easier to say, well, I've looked at the numbers. And you know, eight years ago, we saw this same pattern. And so if the economy improves a little bit in the next three months, here's what will happen. Right now, in the political world. The volatility is so great. That I don't know what's going to happen in November. I can paint a scenario very positive for the president, Republicans where the economy rebounds very strongly and people are feeling really good about things, and the Coronavirus doesn't return. And, you know, that's all wonderful. And in that case, the president probably gets reelected very significant manner and Republicans do very well. On the other hand, if the economy seems to stall and we have another outbreak of the Coronavirus, well, then the President could lose on a scale we've not seen since Herbert Hoover or Walter Mondale, you know, it's just these, that range of outcomes is there. I'll be back with some closing thoughts right after this. 

Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day, the number today: 51. 51% of voters nationwide tell us that they're now more concerned about the economic threat from the pandemic than the health threat. Big turnaround from a couple of months ago. The numbers have been trending in this direction steadily for weeks. You know, but my, kind of, my discomfort with talking about these trends is a recognition of the limitations of numbers. Again, I love numbers, I think they are very useful when they put them in context. One of the things that drives me absolutely insane, is when you get into a debate with somebody, and they throw out a number that sounds very important and very impressive, and it's really totally irrelevant to the question at hand. And I'm afraid we're about to enter that kind of a space when people begin to talk about polling data and stats on the pandemic. We are in an unprecedented situation. We need to look at the data carefully. And we need to give some thought to it. And we need to begin to understand that there's more at stake here than just economic data. We need to understand that the questions that make sense today, you know, might not make sense in a couple more months, Maybe we have to modify them as in this question, maybe instead of saying what worries you the most, the health or the economic threat, we do need to add that thing: neither one of them worries me very much. 

Somebody asked me earlier today, you know, if we'd be asking questions about the masks and who should have the right to decide whether you wear a mask or not. Would we be asking those questions in three years? My answer is, I hope not. You know, I hope this situation is resolved long before then and we're not even talking or thinking about mask at that point. You know, I think when our grandchildren see time travel episodes, they're going to see them coming back to times like this for the pandemic because it will seem so otherworldly. Kind of the way we look at the Depression. But through all of this, as we're living through it, we want to look to data, we want to look to numbers, we want to look to polls, to give us a sense of what's going on. But it's always, always, always important to remember that there are limits on just how much the numbers can tell us.

I'm Scott Rasmussen. I'll be back Monday with another Number of the Day and hope that you'll take a moment to go and share this podcast with your friends. Subscribe to it and you can always find this, my data, my polling and other information ScottRasmussen.com. We also release a daily poll every weekday at 2 p.m. ET at JustTheNews.com. And of course, the Number of the Day at Ballotpedia, weekdays at 8 a.m. I'm Scott Rasmussen, be back Monday. I hope you'll be there to have a great day.