a pew research center poll asked 1102

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New survey of U.S. teachers carries a message: "It is getting harder and harder"

April 4, 2024 / 10:01 AM EDT / CBS News

Over half of American teachers want the public to know that teaching is a hard job , according to a report from the Pew Research Center released Thursday.

Pew Research Center asked 2,531 public K-12 teachers in October and November what the one thing is that they'd want the public to know about their jobs.

The survey illustrates the extent to which the pandemic's unraveling of academic life still weighs heavily on the nation's public school teachers.

Fifty-one percent of respondents wanted it known that teaching is a difficult job and that teachers are hardworking, the Pew report said. These teachers noted that working hours that extended beyond their contracts, as well as classroom duties apart from teaching, had compounded the job's stress. 

"Teachers serve multiple roles other than being responsible for teaching curriculum," one elementary school teacher noted. "We are counselors, behavioral specialists and parents for students who need us to fill those roles."

"The amount of extra hours that teachers have to put in beyond the contractual time is ridiculous," a high school teacher said. "Arriving 30 minutes before and leaving an hour after is just the tip of the iceberg."

Another significant portion of respondents, 22%, wanted the public to know that they care about their students and persevere through the job's hardships so that their students succeed.

But 17% of respondents said they fel undervalued and disrespected despite being well-educated professionals. Those teachers wanted more support from the public. 

"The public attitudes toward teachers have been degrading, and it is making it impossible for well-qualified teachers to be found," a high school teacher said. "People are simply not wanting to go into the profession because of public sentiments."

Fifteen percent of teachers wanted the public to know that teachers are underpaid and that their salaries don't reflect the effort and care they put into students' education.

"Most teachers can't afford health insurance or eyeglasses," one elementary school teacher responded. "Do you know how many teachers NEED eyeglasses?!"

Pew also surveyed U.S. adults about their perceptions of American teachers. The center found that the majority of respondents already believed teaching at a public K-12 school is harder than most jobs, with 33% believing it's a lot harder. 

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Americans surveyed said teachers should be paid more than they currently are, with 39% saying they should be paid a lot more. 

Thirty-two percent of respondents felt the public looks up to teachers, while 30% felt the public looks down on teachers and 37% felt the public neither admired nor disapproved of them. 

The issue that most divided teachers and the public was the question of trust. Nearly half of teachers (47%) felt most Americans don't trust teachers, while 57% of U.S. adults said they do trust teachers to do their jobs well. 

The public's views differed considerably along party lines. Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents were more likely than Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents to say they trusted teachers to do their jobs well (70% vs. 44%) and that teachers should be paid more (86% vs. 63%). 

"It is getting harder and harder. Teachers aren't paid enough and can hardly make a fair living," a high school teacher said to Pew.

"We love your kids and we want the best for them," an elementary school teacher wrote. "We spend more time with your kids than with our own kids, so just give us some trust to do right by them."

S. Dev is a news editor for CBSNews.com.

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Four Years Out, Some Voters Look Back at Trump’s Presidency More Positively

A new poll by The New York Times and Siena College finds that voters think highly of the former president’s record on the economy, but memories of his divisiveness largely remain intact.

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By Lisa Lerer and Ruth Igielnik

Views of Donald J. Trump’s presidency have become more positive since he left office, bolstering his case for election and posing a risk to President Biden’s strategy of casting his opponent as unfit for the presidency, according to a new poll by The New York Times and Siena College .

While the memories of Mr. Trump’s tumultuous and chaotic administration have not significantly faded, many voters now have a rosier picture of his handling of the economy, immigration and maintaining law and order. Ahead of the 2020 election, only 39 percent of voters said that the country was better off after Mr. Trump took office. Now, looking back, nearly half say that he improved things during his time as president.

The poll’s findings underscore the way in which a segment of voters have changed their minds about the Trump era, recalling those years as a time of economic prosperity and strong national security. The shift in views about his administration comes even as Mr. Trump faces dozens of felony counts and will appear in a New York courtroom on Monday for jury selection in one of his four criminal trials.

How respondents’ views of

Trump have changed

From 2020 to now

Approve of his handling

of the economy

Think he left the

country better off

Approve of his handling of

maintaining law & order

of unifying America

of the Supreme Court

From 2016 to now

Think electing him is

a “safe” choice

Think he respects women

How respondents’ views of Trump have changed

Approve of his handling of the economy

Think he left the country better off

Approve of his handling of maintaining

law & order

Approve of his handling of unifying America

Approve of his handling of Covid

the Supreme Court

Think electing him is a “safe” choice

Many voters still remember Mr. Trump as a divisive and polarizing figure, giving him low ratings on race relations and unifying the country. Yet, a larger share of voters see Mr. Trump’s term as better for the country than the current administration, with 42 percent rating the Trump presidency as mostly good for the country compared with 25 percent who say the same about Mr. Biden’s. Nearly half say the Biden years have been mostly bad for the country.

Many of Mr. Trump’s key constituencies, such as white voters without a college degree, are particularly likely to have a fond view of his time in office. But a broad swath of the country — including Hispanic voters, voters over 30 and most lower- and middle-income voters — now see Mr. Trump’s years in office as more good than bad.

Maya Garcia, 23, described herself as a former “Trump hater.” But now, she says, she has come to believe that Mr. Trump’s contentious style helped control crime and maintain order in the country.

“When he was first running, I was, like, what is this guy even yapping about? Like, what is he even saying? Like, he’s saying all the wrong things,” said Ms. Garcia, a restaurant worker from Canoga Park, Calif. “But to be honest, if you look deep into his personality, he actually cares about the country.” She added: “You know at first I didn’t like it. But sometimes we need that type of person in our lives.”

Do you generally remember the years that

(this candidate) was president as mostly

good years for America, mostly bad years

for America, or not really good or bad?

Mostly good

for America

good or bad

Don’t know/

declined to say 1%

Do you generally remember the years that (this candidate)

was president as mostly good years for America, mostly

bad years for America, or not really good or bad?

declined to say1%

Ms. Garcia voted for Mr. Biden four years ago but has been unhappy with his handling of the border, crime, mental health and the rising cost of living. She plans to back Mr. Trump in November.

The shift in the perception of Mr. Trump is not unusual: Presidents are typically viewed in a better light after leaving office. President George W. Bush’s average approval rating while in office was 49 percent; voters now give him a 57 percent approval rating for his time in the White House. And President Barack Obama received a 15 percentage point bump after leaving the White House, according to Gallup .

What’s unusual about the 2024 race is that Mr. Trump is running again, transforming sentiment about his presidency into a salient and potentially influential voting issue.

Some of the changed opinions about Mr. Trump may stem from his diminished visibility. Since leaving office, Mr. Trump has faded some from public view, spending the bulk of his time at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla., and at court hearings. He dominated the Republican presidential primary without participating in any debates; his social media posts on his own platform get less attention than they did on Twitter; and while he still holds large rallies, they are not covered to the same extent as his previous campaigns.

The most improved views of Mr. Trump center on the economy, with several voters saying they have struggled to keep up with higher costs and increased inflation during Mr. Biden’s presidency.

Marecus Maupin, 41, said he now looked back at the Trump years as a time of economic prosperity, even though he is making more money with Mr. Biden as president. He voted for Mr. Biden and now plans to back Mr. Trump.

“We all had a little bit more money in our pockets when he was in office. I think he gave out more money than any other president that I have had in my lifetime,” he said of Mr. Trump. “It now feels like, although I’m making more, I’m not seeing it.”

When asked the one thing they remembered from Mr. Trump’s time in office, a vast majority of positive comments referred to the state of the economy. Many specifically remembered the stimulus checks with his signature printed on them that were sent to tens of millions of Americans during the waning days of his presidency.

Still, large segments of the electorate’s recollection of Mr. Trump’s presidency remain unchanged. Views of his handling of the Supreme Court are nearly identical to 2020, and Mr. Trump’s low approval ratings for unifying the country remain fairly similar. The bulk of negative comments about Mr. Trump’s time in office from participants mentioned the former president’s personality and behavior.

“He’s horrific. He’s a narcissist. He’s dishonest. He’s a misogynist,” said Dodee Firestone, 74, a Biden supporter from Boca Raton, Fla. “I could never, ever, ever vote for Trump.”

But other voters said that while they disapproved of Mr. Trump’s inflammatory style, they wondered whether they had placed too much emphasis on his personality in past elections.

While 70 percent of participants said that Mr. Trump had at one point said something they found offensive, those statements were a distant memory for many. Nearly half of that group said he had not said anything offensive recently. Young voters were especially likely to say it had been a while since Mr. Trump said something they found offensive.

President Biden has devoted a significant portion of his campaign to reminding voters of some of Mr. Trump’s most inflammatory statements and failed policies, particularly regarding his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and controversial comments about Black and Hispanic voters.

And while the issue of abortion rights has been front and center in the general election campaign, less than 2 percent of voters mentioned abortion or Mr. Trump’s role in the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade as the main thing they remember from his presidency.

Some of the visceral fear about Mr. Trump’s presidency also seems to have faded. In October 2016, 40 percent of voters said they were scared of what Mr. Trump might do if elected. Now, 31 percent say they are scared.

Nearly identical shares of voters also say both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden would be a risky choice for the country.

Angie Leon, a 23-year-old Mexican American, said she never liked how Mr. Trump talked about Latinos. But looking back, she wonders whether Mr. Trump’s incendiary remarks about immigrants and building a border wall were just a political tactic to bolster his campaign. After backing Mr. Biden in 2020, she plans to switch her vote to Mr. Trump in November.

“I felt like it was just his marketing, in the way that he would get the attention of people,” said Ms. Leon, a human resources recruiter from Gilroy, Calif. “The country was better when he was running it, despite his comments toward the community.”

Camille Baker contributed reporting.

Here are the key things to know about how this Times/Siena poll was conducted:

We spoke with 1,059 registered voters from April 7 to 11, 2024.

Our polls are conducted by telephone, using live interviewers, in both English and Spanish. More than 95 percent of respondents were contacted on a cellphone for this poll.

Voters are selected for the survey from a list of registered voters. The list contains information on the demographic chara cteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and region. For this poll, we placed nearly 127,000 calls to more than 93,000 voters.

To further ensure that the results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to take a poll, we give more weight to respondents from demographic groups underrepresented among survey respondents, like people without a college degree. You can see more information about the characteristics of our respondents and the weighted sample on the methodology page , under “Composition of the Sample.”

The poll’s margin of sampling error among registered voters is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the views of the overall population most of the time, though many other challenges create additional sources of error. When computing the difference between two values — such as a candidate’s lead in a race — the margin of error is twice as large.

You can see full results and a detailed methodology here . If you want to read more about how and why we conduct our polls, you can see answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here .

Lisa Lerer is a national political reporter for The Times, based in New York. She has covered American politics for nearly two decades. More about Lisa Lerer

Ruth Igielnik is a polling editor for The Times, where she writes and analyzes surveys. She was previously a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center. More about Ruth Igielnik

Read our research on: Gun Policy | International Conflict | Election 2024

Regions & Countries

Question search.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Donald Trump's Hopes of Black Support Stung by New Poll

A new poll has suggested Donald Trump will not garner significant support from Black voters in November's presidential election.

Trump is set to face off against President Joe Biden later this year in a rematch of the 2020 election, as each candidate has won enough delegates to secure their party's presidential nomination. Ahead of this vote, some reports and polls have suggested there has been racial realignment, with Black voters, who traditionally support the Democratic Party opting to vote for the Republicans instead.

But new research from Pew Research Center suggests otherwise. A survey shows 83 percent of Black voters favor the Democratic Party, a three percent decline from 1994 when 86 percent aligned in this way.

On the other hand, 12 percent support the Republican Party. This marks a one percent decline from 1994 when 13 percent supported the party.

Newsweek contacted a representative for Trump by email to comment on this story.

Pew Research Center surveyed 10,124 people in its annual survey and there was a margin of error of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.

However, the research did not ask voters about candidates, only parties and the polling still suggests he would perform marginally better than in his previous election. He won 8 percent of the Black vote in 2020.

Previous Newsweek analysis shows that if Trump wins more than 13 percent of the vote share, he will gain the highest proportion of the Black vote since Richard Nixon did in 1960.

In 2020, Biden also won 88 percent of the Black demographic, but in January, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed that 58.6 percent of Black Georgians said they would support Biden, while 20.4 percent said they would support Trump. Ten percent of Black Georgians said they do not plan to vote in 2024.

Speaking to Newsweek in January, Mary Frances Berry, historian at The Pennsylvania State University cited economic reasons for Trump gaining more of the vote share.

"Black males especially cite prices of basic needs, food for example despite the decline in inflation," she said. "Some who are small business owners say under Trump it was easier for them to get federal loans, for example. They also cite the backlash against police accountability measures as the George Floyd murder discussion has receded into the sunset."

She continued: "Middle age and older Black women seem to take a better than Trump lesser of two evils posture. But nobody I know is excited about reelecting Biden. They like Kamala Harris , but lots of folks will probably stay home unless some unexpected positive change in economic prospects or civil rights occurs."

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• Donald Trump Faces Backlash for Comments on Black and Jewish Voters

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Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to feel this way. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, about three-quarters say they’re bothered a lot by the feeling that some corporations (77%) and some wealthy people (77%) don’t pay their fair share. Much smaller shares of Republicans and GOP leaners share these views (46% say this about corporations and 43% about the wealthy).

Meanwhile, about two-thirds of Americans (65%) support raising tax rates on large businesses and corporations, and a similar share (61%) support raising tax rates on households with annual incomes over $400,000. Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say these tax rates should increase.

Just over half of U.S. adults feel they personally pay more than what is fair,  considering what they get in return from the federal government, according to the same survey.

This sentiment has grown more widespread in recent years: 56% of Americans now say they pay more than their fair share in taxes, up from 49% in 2021. Roughly a third (34%) say they pay about the right amount, and 8% say they pay less than their fair share.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they pay more than their fair share (63% vs. 50%), though the share of Democrats who feel this way has risen since 2021. (The share among Republicans is statistically unchanged from 2021.)

Many Americans are frustrated by the complexity of the federal tax system, according to the same survey. About half (53%) say its complexity bothers them a lot. Of the aspects of the federal tax system that we asked about, this was the top frustration among Republicans – 59% say it bothers them a lot, compared with 49% of Democrats.

Undeniably, the federal tax code is a massive document, and it has only gotten longer over time. The printed 2022 edition of the Internal Revenue Code clocks in at 4,192 pages, excluding front matter. Income tax law alone accounts for over half of those pages (2,544).

The public is divided in its views of the IRS.  In a separate spring 2023 Center survey, 51% of Americans said they have an unfavorable opinion of the government tax agency, while 42% had a favorable view of the IRS. Still, of the 16 federal agencies and departments we asked about, the IRS was among the least popular on the list.

Views of the IRS differ greatly by party:

• Among Republicans, 29% have a favorable view and 64% have an unfavorable view. • Among Democrats, it’s 53% favorable and 40% unfavorable.

On balance, Democrats offer much more positive opinions than Republicans when it comes to most of the federal agencies we asked about. Even so, the IRS ranks near the bottom of their list.

Individual income taxes are by far the government’s largest single source of revenue , according to estimates from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The federal government expects to collect about $2.5 trillion in individual income taxes in fiscal year 2024. That accounts for nearly half (49%) of its total estimated receipts for the year. The next largest chunk comes from Social Security taxes (including those for disability and retirement programs), which are projected to pull in $1.2 trillion this fiscal year (24%).

By comparison, corporate income taxes are estimated to bring in $612.8 billion, or 12% of this fiscal year’s federal receipts. And excise taxes – which include things like transportation trust fund revenue and taxes on alcohol, tobacco and crude oil – are expected to come to $99.7 billion, or 2% of receipts.

American tax dollars mostly go to social services.  Human services – including education, health, Social Security, Medicare, income security and veterans benefits – together will account for 66% ($4.6 trillion) of federal government spending in fiscal 2024, according to OMB estimates.

An estimated 13% ($907.7 billion) will go toward defense spending. Another 13% ($888.6 billion) will repay net interest on government debt, and 10% ($726.9 billion) will fund all other functions, including energy, transportation, agriculture and more.

The vast majority of Americans e-file their taxes , according to IRS data. In fiscal 2022, 150.6 million individual federal income tax returns were filed electronically, accounting for 94% of all individual filings that year.

Unsurprisingly, e-filing has become more popular since the turn of the century. Fiscal 2000, the earliest year for which comparable data is available, saw 35.4 million individual income tax returns filed electronically (including those filed over the phone). These accounted for just 28% of individual filings that year.

By fiscal 2005, more than half of individual income tax returns (52%) were filed electronically.

Anna Jackson, an editorial assistant at Pew Research Center, compiled this report. See her full report here .

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