More People Alienated Now than at any Time Since 1999

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – November 18, 2008 – Since 1966, The Harris Poll® has measured how alienated Americans feel from society and those with political and economic power, through its Alienation Index. The more alienated people feel, the higher the index.

These are some of the results from The Harris Poll, a new nationwide survey of 1,010 U.S. adults, surveyed by telephone between October 30 and November 2, 2008 by Harris Interactive^®. Harris Interactive has asked these questions at about the same time each year to limit any possible seasonal bias.

This year’s survey finds that the Alienation Index has increased to 58 from 56 last year (2007), the highest level during the presidency of George W. Bush. But it is still substantially lower than it was for six of the eight years of the Clinton administration. Over the eight years of the current Bush presidency, the Alienation Index has increased 11 points from 47 in 2001, to 54 in 2006, to 58 today.

As events swirled throughout the country, the index has ebbed and flowed along with them:

• It jumped 15 points between 1972 and 1973, from 44 to 55 as the Watergate scandal captured the country’s attention and people believed that there was an abuse of executive power, namely the President himself;
• In 1983, the Index jumped from 56 to 62 during Reagan’s first term, during an economic downturn when people were generally unhappy with how things were going in the country;
• During the George H. W. Bush administration, alienation started high and rose from there, reaching a new record of 66 in 1991 as the euphoria of winning the first Gulf War wore off and economic conditions became more uncertain;
• In July 1992, this sense of alienation led to some of the highest numbers ever of people saying the country was going in the wrong direction, driven by a third party candidate for President in Ross Perot and a Democrat about to take the White House after 12 years of Republican rule;
• In 1995, well into Clinton’s first term, the index hit its highest point of 67 in the midst of two government shutdowns (in November and December of that year). Relations between a Republican Congress and the Democratic White House were at their lowest levels and images of tourists barred from the Smithsonian were on newscasts around the country. Americans were more critical of all politicians and politics than usual, and it showed;
• Although Clinton ended his eight years in the White House on a low note, the Alienation Index had dropped to 55. Things were going well in the country and in times of economic prosperity, people are happier, and;
• In 2001, just two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, the alienation index hit one of its lowest points in almost 30 years, at 47. Americans with undaunted patriotism rallied around the flag and came together in response to the crisis.

In addition to the five questions used to compute the Alienation Index, The Harris Poll asks whether or not people feel that "the people in Washington are out of touch with the rest of the country." In the fall of 2001, George W. Bush’s first year in the White House and soon after the 9/11 attacks, 51% of Americans felt that way. Last year, 75% did so. Now fully 83% feel this way about "the people in Washington", equaling the all-time high recorded in response to this question since we first asked it in 1992 and 1993.

However, President Bush might take some comfort to note that, even if alienation has risen while he has been in the White House, it is still lower than it was for six of the eight years of the Clinton administration, and nine points lower than the worst number during the Clinton presidency (67). Furthermore, the average for the Alienation Index over the last eight years (53) is lower than the averages under Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Clinton.

Other results from this year’s Alienation Index include:

• 71% of adults feel "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer"
• 62% of adults feel "the people running the country don’t really care what happens to you"
• 59% feel that "most people with power try to take advantage of people like yourself"
• 57% feel that "what you think doesn’t count very much anymore"
• 41% feel "you are left out of things going on around you."

The level of alienation is one measure of how well a society is functioning. In a healthy democracy one would expect to find a low level of alienation, as most people feel they participate in the process, can influence public and private sector leaders, and that those leaders are responsive to public opinion. However, the level of alienation is only somewhat correlated with the president’s approval ratings. The Harris Alienation Index is clearly measuring broader societal trends, not just attitudes about what happens in Washington.

Given the rhetoric of Barack Obama’s campaign, and his emphasis on change, and finding new ways of doing things in Washington, it will be interesting to see if the level of alienation declines next year.

The Harris Interactive Alienation Index is calculated by taking an average (mean) of those who agree with the first five statements (see Table 3)

The Alienation Index was not calculated in 1967, 1970, 1975, 1979, 1980 and 1981.

"Now I want to read you some things some people have told us they have felt from time to time. Do you tend to feel or not feel (READ LIST)?"

"N/A" Not included in the Alienation Index.

Note: These questions have always been asked at the end of the year, usually in November or December.

The Harris Poll® was conducted by telephone within the United States between October 30 and November 2, 2008 among a nationwide cross section of 1,010 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults, number of voice/telephone lines in the household, region and size of place were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

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