Social Security plan backed in new poll

WT reports Most likely voters continue to support President Bush's proposal to let younger workers invest some of their Social Security payroll taxes through personal accounts, a new survey finds. The poll by independent pollster John Zogby for the Cato Institute, which is being released today, found that when voters understood the benefits of personal investment accounts, including a better financial rate of return than the current system, the Bush plan was supported by 52 percent of Americans and opposed by 40 percent.

John @PowerLine blogged As always, poll results depend a lot on how you ask the question. The latest Zogby poll finds that 52% of Americans supported Social Security reform, including private accounts, when they were told that private accounts could generate a higher rate of return than Social Security. (I've never liked talking about Social Security "rates of return," since the fact is that there isn't any investment, just payment of taxes.) Here are Zogby's key paragraphs:

"The thing that is compelling in this poll is that this is the response you get when you use a positive approach on Social Security reform," Mr. Zogby said. "If you use the 'Chicken Little, sky-is-falling' approach, then voters understand that something has to be done, but don't see the connection between personal accounts and fundamental reform of Social Security." Among supporters, the most popular reason for supporting private accounts was, "It's my money; I should control it," Mr. Zogby said. "This was true for every group except African-Americans, who chose inheritability as their biggest reason for supporting accounts." The poll's results suggested that Mr. Bush's proposal would be much more popular if he focused "on the points in this poll," Mr. Zogby said in an interview. "Nobody can understand or relate to the system's insolvency in 2043. But it wins a majority when the issue is raised as a matter of choice and as a positive opportunity," he said. "If it's pitted as just Social Security reform because it is becoming insolvent, that's not enough."

I thnk that's right. I've always thought that the worst way to sell Social Security reform is to talk about accounting.

Glenn Reynolds blogged Two caveats: (1) it's from Zogby; and (2) I suspect that most people's feelings on this are fairly provisional at the moment. Nonetheless, it suggests that Bush's proposals aren't as unpopular as some have been saying.

Oliver Willis blogged For starters, does anyone expect a poll released by the pro-privatization Cato Institute to come to any other conclusion? Secondly, the wording of the question is laughable.

The wording of the question is "Do you favor or oppose proposals to give younger workers the choice of privately investing a portion of their Social Security taxes through personal accounts?". Why do you find that laughable? That seems a perfectly fair question to me. Today's youth are not just facing a cutback in benefits; they are facing Social Security not being there at all when they retire.

I imagine people would agree to a social security plan that cured cancer and enhanced sexual pleasure too! The polls have shown, time and time again, when people understand that under the Bush plan social security benefits will be cut and that it will do nothing to address the long-term solvency of the program (which is not remotely in "crisis" any time soon), they overwhelmingly oppose the Bush plan. But then, reality has never sold well in the right wing echo chamber.

Gerry @DalyThoughts blogged The numbers look, without question, more favorable for the President than most other surveys. However, the poll was commissioned by the Cato Institute, which has a dog in this hunt, and on top of that the usual Zogby caveats apply (not to mention the rule of thumb that when one pollster is off by his lonesome on a measurement, that pollster is the one to discount). Until such time as I see other polls showing improving numbers for the President’s proposals, I have to assume that he is still losing the PR battle over Social Security reform– no matter how much I wish he was winning.