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Donald Trump is apparently planning to deliver a hair-raising speech tonight focused on the “crime and violence that today afflicts our nation.” According to Trump, homicides are up, Washington DC is a killing zone, police shootings have skyrocketed, and illegal immigrants are “roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.”
Whew. Just to prepare you for all this, here’s a chart you’ve seen many times before showing the rate of violent crime since its peak in 1993:
We don’t have official numbers for 2015 yet, and they might show a small uptick. That’s the nature of these things. But it’s pretty obvious that America is a considerably safer place than it’s been in decades.
But as the redoubtable Paul Manafort says, what about how people feel? Do they feel safe? That’s a hard question to answer, but Gallup asks it every year. Here’s the latest. I’ve included Excel’s trendline just to make it clear which direction this is going:
Bottom line: crime is way down and people feel safer than ever. Try not let Donald scare you too much tonight.
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This week the CDC confirmed what we already knew: the rate of uninsurance has dropped dramatically since Obamacare started up. It’s gone from about 20 percent in 2013 to 13 percent in the first quarter of this year (chart at top right). This matches the Gallup data that we get quarterly, which shows a drop from about 18 percent to 12 percent (chart at bottom right). Note that the Gallup numbers are about 2 points lower across the board because Gallup surveys everyone over 18, including seniors on Medicare, who are 100 percent covered. The CDC counts only adults aged 18-64.
Either way, this comes to about 16 million adults who now have health insurance who were previously uncovered. And the number would be even higher if so many red states weren’t refusing to expand Medicaid.
And the cost of all this? About $70 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s roughly $4,000 per person. Not a bad deal.
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The latest Gallup poll on the uninsured is out, and it shows that the uninsurance rate continues to drop. Using the same 2011-12 baseline I’ve used before, uninsurance has now dropped about 1.8 percentage points since the rollout of Obamacare. Since the Gallup poll includes everyone, not just the nonelderly, this amounts to about 5.6 million people. However, note that this 5.6 million drop doesn’t include sub-26ers who are on their parents’ insurance, since that policy change had already taken effect by 2011. Nor does it include the entire late surge in Obamacare enrollment. Add those in and the real number is probably in the neighborhood of 8-9 million. By the end of the year, we should hit 10 million or so.
The biggest declines in uninsurance were among the young, among blacks, and among the low-income. More details at the link.
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West Virginia’s tenure as the most obese state in America—a three-year run that no one ever called a dynasty—is over.
According to Gallup, which just released its 2013 survey on obesity in America, 35.4 percent of Mississippians have a BMI above 30, giving the home of 3 Doors Down the highest obesity rate in the Union. West Virginia came in second at 34.4 percent.
Meanwhile, Montana toppled three-time defending least-obese champion and budding marijuana tourist destination Colorado, with a svelte 19.6 percent.
You can check out the full results here.
On average, residents of the 10 most obese states were—unsurprisingly—less likely to eat healthily, consume fruits and vegetables, or workout regularly than residents of the least obese states.
Overall the national obesity rate rose to 27.1 percent in 2013. It has risen every year since 2008.
Read this article –
Survey: These Are the Most and Least Obese States in America
Stock image for “polling.” This is not how Gallup does it, I don’t think.
The Gallup Organization — purveyors of fine polling products such as its Nov. 5 prediction that Romney would win; employers of possible future Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (join the club); defendants in a lawsuit filed by the federal government alleging that the company inflated its prices — released a poll yesterday. Let’s look at it!
The top headline was that Republicans and Democrats differ more in their opinions on gun laws than on any other topic: 28 percent of Democrats are satisfied to some extent with existing laws on guns, compared with 59 percent of Republicans. Fine. Not surprising.
Here’s what’s interesting: The numbers related to “quality of the environment” — a poor replacement for environmental laws, mind you — broke down as 51 percent satisfaction among Democrats and 61 percent among Republicans. On “energy policies,” 44 percent of Democrats are satisfied compared to 31 percent of Republicans.
Click to embiggen.
Before we get into analysis, an additional note. Not only are Republicans significantly more satisfied with “quality of the environment” than Democrats — it is the issue area in which they feel the second-most satisfaction. The only thing Republicans are happier with than the current state of our environment is how strong and big and tough our military is. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans are satisfied with the military … compared to 81 percent of Democrats.
Which offers some insight into what’s happening here. People interpret the question being posed not as “do you like the environment” but rather as “do you think the government should spend more time and money on the environment.” A higher “satisfaction” is really a higher level of “do not touch.” Democrats are more satisfied with the military because they don’t feel that the military needs more time and attention and investment. Republicans are more satisfied with the environment because they don’t think it needs more time and attention and investment. And, on the flip side, Republicans are less satisfied with energy policies — the issue on which they show the fifth-least satisfaction — because they favor opening up more land to drilling.
Gallup notes:
Democrats are evidently more inclined to see things positively, given that the nation is being governed by a Democratic president. In 2005, at the beginning of Republican George W. Bush’s second term in office, Republicans were generally more satisfied with the state of the nation in most areas than Democrats were. Back then, the only issue on which Democrats were more satisfied than Republicans was immigration levels.
The poll is a reflection of political attitudes more than a barometer of voter opinion on how the government addresses issues. Which means that it’s less informative than it might appear at first glance.
And we’ll have to see how it evolves as President Romney’s term continues. He won, right?
Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.
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Republicans are very satisfied with the quality of the environment
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