Do Americans View Financial Threats as Important Political Issues?
This chapter describes in greater detail the objective situation facing Americans in four major areas of financial threats: job insecurity, healthcare costs, retirement, and the cost of college. It analyzes the politics of such threats among the mass public. It examines the extent to which the people who consider such issues important are facing them in their own daily lives, as opposed to a situation in which their concerns are reflective of what others are facing. The data for this chapter are drawn from several sources, including time series data from Gallup beginning in the early 1950s as well as American National Election Study data from the past three decades that (broadly) match the time frame in which the objective situation in these four areas has become more insecure.