by Jodie T. Allen, Senior Editor, Pew Enquiry Center

Were confirmation needed that the American public is in a sour mood, the 2010 midterm elections provided it. As both pre-election and post-election surveys made clear, Americans are non simply strongly dissatisfied with the land of the economy and the direction in which the country is headed, but with government efforts to improve them. As the Pew Enquiry Center'southward assay of leave poll information ended, "the outcome of this year's ballot represented a repudiation of the political status quo…. Fully 74% said they were either aroused or dissatisfied with the federal government, and 73% disapproved of the job Congress is doing."

This outlook is in interesting contrast with many of the public's views during the Corking Depression of the 1930s, not merely on economic, political and social issues, just also on the role of government in addressing them.

Quite dissimilar today'south public, what Depression-era Americans wanted from their government was, on many counts, more not less. And despite their far more dire economical straits, they remained more optimistic than today's public. Nor did average Americans then turn their ire upon their Groton-Harvard-educated president — this despite his failure, over his first term in role, to bring a swift stop to their hardship. FDR had his detractors but these tended to be young man members of the social and economic elite.

Still, as now, the public had some reservations about the stretch of government power and found little consensus on specific policies with which to tackle the nation's troubles.

Broadly representative measures of public opinion during the commencement years of the Depression are not bachelor — the Gallup arrangement did non brainstorm its regular polling operations until 1935. And in its early years of polling, Gallup asked few questions directly comparable with today'due south more than standardized sets. Moreover, its samples were heavily male person, relatively well off and overwhelmingly white. Yet, a combined data set of Gallup polls for the years 1936 and1937, fabricated bachelor by the Roper Center, provides insight into the significant differences, simply too notable similarities, betwixt public opinion then and at present.1

Bear in mind that while unemployment had receded from its 1933 peak, estimated at 24.9% by the economist Stanley Lebergott,2 information technology was all the same nearly 17% in 1936 and 14% in 1937.3 By contrast, today's unemployment situation is far less dismal. To exist certain, despite substantial job gains in October, unemployment remains stubbornly high relative to the norm of recent decades and the ranks of the long-term unemployed accept risen sharply in recent months. Simply the current 9.8% official government rate, as painful equally it is to jobless workers and their families, remains far below the levels that prevailed during most of the 1930s.

Still, despite their far higher and longer-lasting record of unemployment, Depression-era Americans remained hopeful for the future. Virtually one-half (50%) expected general business organization weather condition to improve over the next six months, while only 29% expected a worsening. And fully threescore% thought that opportunities for getting ahead were better (45%) or at least every bit practiced (xv%) as in their begetter's solar day.

Today'south public is far gloomier about the economic outlook: Only 35% in an October Pew Research Center survey expected meliorate economic weather by Oct 2011, while 16% expected a still weaker economy. The Reagan-era recession constitute the public somewhat more hopeful than at present, but less optimistic than in the 1930s.4 In Nov 1982, with unemployment at its recession peak of nearly xi%, Americans believed their personal fiscal situation would improve over the next year past a 41%-to-22% margin.

Still, the most striking difference between the 1930s and the present day is that, by the standards of today'south political parlance, boilerplate Americans of the mid-1930s revealed downright "socialistic" tendencies in many of their views about the proper role of government.

True, when asked to describe their political position, fewer than 2% of those surveyed were fix to depict themselves as "socialist" rather than every bit Republican, Democratic or independent. Only by a lopsided margin of 54% to 34%, they expressed the stance that if there were another depression (and fears of i were mounting), the government should follow the same spending blueprint as FDR's assistants had followed before.

And, those surveyed said they supported Roosevelt, the builder of the New Bargain's expansive programs, over his 1936 Republican opponent, Alfred Landon by more than two-to-one (62%-30%).v

Pro-Government Preferences …

Among policies approved by roughly ii-in-3 in 1936-vii, was the new Social Security program — this despite the fact that the questions asked nearly it focused on the compulsory equal monthly contributions by employers and employees rather than on whatsoever promised benefits at retirement.

Large majorities favored the federal regime providing free medical care for those unable to pay (76%), helping state and local governments cover the costs of medical intendance for mothers at childbirth (74%), spending $25 meg (big bucks in those days) to control crabs diseases (68%), and giving loans on "a long time and like shooting fish in a barrel basis" to enable tenant farmers to buy the farms they then rented (73%).

Moreover, a 46%-plurality favored concentration of power in the federal, rather than country government (34% favored the latter).

Of grade, the New Deal had many vocal critics. A favorite target was the WPA, the employer of some eight million workers over its 8-year lifetime.

Although these workers somehow managed to build such enduring monuments as La Guardia and Washington (at present Reagan) National airports, Grand Coulee Dam, the Outer Bulldoze in Chicago, San Francisco'due south Bay Span and New York'southward Triborough Bridge, equally well equally parks, schools, playgrounds, overpasses, golf game courses and airfields scattered across the land, they were featured in many a cartoon as passing their time leaning on their shovels.6 In response, the WPA Theatre projection produced a play satirizing that common criticism (see photo at right).

Some contemporaneous complaints have a familiar ring. In a 1935 radio broadcast, the president of the New York Economical Quango saw information technology this way: "This, of course, is nothing simply the same old European and Asiatic tyranny from which our ancestors fled Europe in order to found existent freedom."

Only this was not the majority view. Half of the public even supported enactment of a 2nd NRA (National Recovery Administration), the New Deal bureau alleged unconstitutional past a Supreme Court that aimed to reduce "subversive competition" by encouraging industry agreements and wage and hour protections for workers. Besides, a 55%-majority thought that the wages paid to workers in manufacture were too low, while half said that big business concerns were raking in likewise much profit.

And Ready to Regulate …

Statist views were not limited to support for government spending. Major regulatory programs also received potent endorsements: Fully 70% favored limitations and prohibitions on kid labor, even if that required amending the Constitution. Even more (88%) endorsed a constabulary that would forbid misleading food, cosmetic and drug advertising. Past 52% to 36%, the public also supported an amendment that would permit greater congressional regulation of industry and agriculture — and, at least in state of war-time, federal command of "all profits from business and industry" was favored by a 64%-to-26% margin.

Perhaps the sharpest difference from today's prevailing ethos is that, by a lopsided 59%-to-29% margin, Americans then said they would prefer public rather than private ownership of the electrical ability industry! Fifty-fifty more (69%) gave a thumbs-upward to a takeover of the war munitions manufacture.

… But Just Up to a Signal

Still, even then there were limits on the appetite for government takeovers. By a 55%-to-29% margin, the public rejected public ownership of the railroads and separate 42%-44% on the question of government ownership of the banks (though a 48%-plurality expected that sooner or later that would happen.)

Indeed, when asked if they had to brand the option would they opt for fascism or communism, the public expressed a substantial preference for fascism (39%) over communism (25%), while 36% offered no opinion. (When the question was phrased in terms of living under a High german- versus a Russian-blazon authorities, the public showed a like preference for the High german model.

Moreover, despite widespread deprivation far across anything experienced in mod-day America, by a margin of 50%-to-42%, Americans in the mid-1930s rejected the idea of government limiting the size of individual fortunes.

Nor was the public was set to give organized labor a wholehearted comprehend. Only 10% said they belonged to a matrimony, and, during the 1936-1937 General Motors strike, only a third said their sympathy lay with the strikers, while 41% sided with the employers. What'south more, fully 60% supported the passage of state laws making sit-down strikes illegal, and near the same proportion favored forceful intervention by state and local authorities; half would call out the militia if strike trouble threatened.

In this dim view of unions, the 1930s public finds company amid today's voters. Equally Andrew Kohut describes in a contempo analysis in the New York Times, the majority support that unions had come to enjoy has faded sharply since 2007. In a February 2010 Pew Research survey, only 41% of the public expresses a favorable opinion of organized labor, downwardly from 58% three years earlier.

Support for assistance programs was as well waning somewhat by 1937. A 53%-bulk expressed support for "the regime's policy of reducing relief expenditures at this time," while opinion was separate on whether subcontract benefits should exist increased (39%), decreased (31%) or left the same (31%). Relatively few (25%) were set up to subtract soldiers' pensions merely merely 24% wanted to run into them increased.

This weakening of back up for regime spending was no doubt tied to business over the buildup of federal debt. Government borrowing had not yet exploded to the nevertheless-unmatched levels relative to the size of the economy seen during World War Two, simply New Bargain stimulus spending had pushed the federal debt to 40% of GDP by 1933, a level around which information technology hovered throughout the rest of the decade.

At the time of the November 1936 election, a solid 65%-majority said that it was necessary for the new administration to balance the upkeep – though 62% as well thought that was Congress's responsibility rather than the president's. To that cease, many were even set up to raise some taxes: Nearly half (45%) supported a sales tax in their state to raise acquirement. Likewise, past a 49%-to-32% margin, the public favored taxing income from federal bonds, a levy that would, presumably, fall most heavily on well-to-do coupon-clippers.

When it came to the spending side of the federal balance sheet, nonetheless, they like today's voters, shied away from specificity. Fully 70% signed on to a subtract in "general regime running expenses," that era'southward probable equivalent of today's "fraud, waste material and abuse." Still, as now, that consensus wobbled when the question got down to the specific consequences of spending cuts. About half opted for unspecified cuts in relief programs, and relatively few (31%) thought WPA workers should get a pay heighten. Just no more than 28% thought relief workers should exist dropped from the program before they had found jobs in individual manufacture. And 67% acknowledged finding work outside of the WPA would be hard to do.

… And Not About to Coronate

His popularity even so, America was not prepared to enthrone its leader in the White Business firm. The public was divided as to whether Congress should give Roosevelt the power to enlarge the chiffonier and reorganize government. The same was truthful of FDR's plan to "pack" the Supreme Courtroom so every bit to increase its liberal membership.

Only a tertiary (34%) then favored the third term for Roosevelt that he subsequently won. (In the throes of the deep 1981-82 recession, a nearly identical minority, 36%, wanted Reagan to seek a 2d term.7 By comparison, despite seemingly intractable unemployment, a 47%-plurality all the same wants President Obama to run in 2012.)

Nor was the Grapes-of-Wrath era public totally forgiving. In 1938, afterward previously declining unemployment took a abrupt upwardly plow, Democrats lost vii seats in the Senate and a still tape-setting total of 72 seats in the House. In the 1982 midterm elections, Republicans lost 26 seats in the House, strengthening the Democratic majority, though Republicans retained control of the Senate, not losing a single seat. Of course, two years later on these setbacks for their parties, voters returned both Reagan and Roosevelt to the White Business firm.

How Different a World?

More mundane differences than the absence of grit bowls, migrating Okies, and starving sharecroppers separate today's American mural from that of the 1930s. There was TVA — but no TV. And, of course, there was no net. More half of the 66%-male, 98%-white sample surveyed by Gallup in 1936-37 had boilerplate or above average incomes; merely x% were on relief. Only 46% had no telephone and 43% lacked a auto. And while almost (82%) frequented the movies, 38% still preferred the old black-and-white variety to color.

Train was the preferred mode of travel on a long trip, handily beating out planes, cars and the bus. And despite active efforts by the aviation industry to encourage passengers (including the introduction of female stewardesses and the introduction in 1936 of a "buy now, pay later" discounted ticket programme that volition seem familiar to modern-day consumers), as well as participant-friendly air shows in localities across the nation, ii out of three among those surveyed had never traveled in an airplane. And nearly didn't desire to: Six-in-ten (61%) said that fifty-fifty if someone paid their full expenses, they still wouldn't want to go by airplane to Europe and back, whereas lxxx% would gladly accept the deal if they could go by gunkhole.

Only for all their differences in day-to-solar day experience — non to mention their views of government — Americans in the 1930s shared attitudes with many of today'south voters that extend across their depression opinion of unions and their not-specific worry about federal debt.

The Bonnie-and-Clyde/John Dillinger era of celebrity gangsters had ended a couple of years earlier and in 1936-7, Americans were generally as tough on crime every bit they are at present: 60% favored the decease penalty — though among these only a quarter supported death sentence for persons younger than age 21.

Three-in-4 (74%) thought parole boards should be stricter. And almost everyone (86%) wanted jail sentences for drunken drivers. Nevertheless, most (54%) favored giving more attention to prisoners' occupational training, rather than dealing with them more severely (22%).

Equally now, Americans in the 1930s worried about immigrants, whether legal or not, taking jobs from native-born Americans: Two in three thought "aliens on relief" should be sent back to their "ain countries."

With domestic bug so pressing, few were interested in the United States taking on strange obligations. A striking 64% called information technology a error for the U.Southward. to have entered World State of war I, despite its victory, and by ii to one (53%-26%), they still rejected U.South. membership in the League of Nations. Furthermore, to get in hard for the country to go involved in another massive conflict, not only did they assume the now all-but-nullified ramble requirement that Congress should declare state of war, nearly seven-in-ten (68%) thought Congress should showtime be required to "obtain the approval of the people by ways of a national vote."

In today'southward global economy, the U.South. public is far more internationally minded. Still, as in the 1930s, isolationist tendencies take cropped upward. In a December 2009 Pew Research poll, nigh half (49%) said that the United states should "heed its own business internationally and let other countries become along the best they can on their own. " In addition, 44% agreed that "the U.S. should go our own way in international matters," a record level since Gallup start asked the question in 1964. This twelvemonth, a pre-ballot survey plant jobs and wellness care were the runaway top issues amid probable voters; Afghanistan or terrorism ranked at the very lesser of a list of half-dozen possible issues.

Back then, people were generally supportive of a free press. More than than one-half (52%) agreed that "the press should have the correct to say ANYTHING it pleases well-nigh public officials" — with the emphasis supplied in the Gallup question.

3 years after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, few (29%) said they would vote to "make the country dry" again.

But these were far from thorough-going libertarians. Though identity theft and terrorists boarding planes were absent from the citizenry's listing of concerns in the mid-thirties, by a 63%-to-29% margin, the public favored a requirement that everyone in the United States be fingerprinted, a proportion remarkably shut to the 57% who favored a national identity carte du jour when a Pew Inquiry Center survey last tested this issue at the close of 2006.

More strikingly, about 3-quarters of the U.South. public (73%) favored sterilization of habitual criminals and the hopelessly insane, a view now considered then retrograde that pollsters no longer even enquire well-nigh it.

The "birth command movement," which might exist viewed as either a libertarian freedom-to-choose cause or an authoritarian population-command effort, depending on one's point of view, drew strong 61%-to-26% support.

Views on civil rights were evolving, but slowly. 6 in ten said Congress should make lynching a federal crime. Two-thirds thought information technology was acceptable to have women serve on juries in their state. Moreover, among those favoring the death sentence, fully 77% were set to give women equal opportunity for the scaffold or electric chair. But while a sixty%-majority was gear up to vote for a well-qualified Catholic for president, and the surveyed public divide evenly (46%-47%) on the choice of a Jew, only a 3rd (33%) would send a woman to the Oval Office, fifty-fifty if she "were qualified in every other respect." The possibility of a black president was evidently so remote that Gallup didn't carp to test public reaction.

And in Conclusion …

Is at that place a message in this for today'due south America? Ii possible lessons: First, it's worth remembering that the social programs and cyberbanking controls that the New Deal era produced stood the nation in good stead over many decades of unprecedented prosperity. 2d, Depression-era Americans' organized religion in the country and its guiding institutions steeled them confronting the challenges of a double-dip recession and, years later, World War II. They had it worse, but they besides expected it to get ameliorate, faster.

Learn how early 1980s Americans responded to their deep economic downturn in an accompanying commentary: "Reagan's Recession"

1. The Gallup poll samples are drawn from 21 individual surveys conducted nationally and reweighted to arrange to population demographics The Roper Center'southward provides the following description of survey methodology and their additional "cleaning" efforts to make the data consistent and representative across surveys.

Full general Information:

This information set is made upward of 21 individual surveys. They were conducted during the years 1936 and 1937 by the American Institute of Public Opinion. At that place are a total of 63,052 records in the file. The bodily study numbers and their respective Due north's are presented below:

Survey N's do Non correspond the "true" number of persons interviewed. As was the custom in the early days of information processing, a "card" weighting procedure was used to make the samples conform to population parameters. Instead of creation of a "weight" variable (which serves equally a multiplication factor) individual response records were simply duplicated. The data from the surveys were processed according to standard Roper Center procedures. Cleaning procedures (converting from multi-dial formats to characters formats) were performed so as to preserve the integrity of the original survey instruments. Certain variables accept been recoded from their "unmarried" survey forms to insure cross- study consistency. This cumulative data set merges all 21surveys into a unmarried data set with repeated questions beyond surveys defines equally the aforementioned variables. The survey identification variable serves as a means for specific survey identification. Missing data codes accept been established for questions non asked in the various surveys. The surveys included for each question are documented in "notes" after each question in the following codebook. Sampling Technique: Modified Probability. Prior to 1950, the samples for all Gallup surveys, excluding special surveys, were a combination of what is known as a purposive design for the selection of cities, towns, and rural areas, and the quota method for the option of individuals inside such selected areas. these were distributed by 6 regions and 5 or six urban center size, urban rural groups or strata in proportion to the distribution of the population of voting historic period by these regional-city size strata. The distribution of cases between the non-south and s, however, was on the basis of the vote in Presidential elections. Within each region the sample of such places was fatigued separately for each of the larger states and for groups of smaller states. The places were selected to provide broad geographic distribution within states and at the same fourth dimension in combination to exist politically representative of the country or grouping of states in terms of three previous elections. Specifically they were selected and then that in combination they matched the state vote for three previous elections inside small tolerances. Great emphasis was placed on election information equally a control in the era from 1935 to 1950. Within the civil divisions in the sample, respondents were selected on the ground of age, sex and socio-economical quotas. Otherwise, interviewers were given considerable latitude within the sample areas, being permitted to draw their cases from households and from persons on the street anywhere in the community.
 2. The BLS did not begin producing official estimates of unemployment until 1940, simply the estimates produced by Lebergott are well-regarded inside the bookish customs. Lebergott, yet, includes WPA and other work relief participants among the unemployed. By counting these workers as employed, economist Michael Darby reduces the 1933 peak to 20.6%.
 iii. If WPA and other work-relief workers are counted amidst the employed, the unemployment rate is estimated to have been reduced to 10% in 1936 and ix% in 1937.
 4. For a more detailed description of public opinion during the 1981-1982 recession, come across "Reagan's Recession."
 5. Averaged over both pre- and post-ballot surveys.
 6. A weblog of Americana recounts ane typical joke of the era: A motorist honored the stop sign preceding a curve in the road, in which y'all couldn't see the terminate of the curve. A W.P.A. worker was there to propose the motorists — simply he had laryngitis and had to speak in a raspy whisper. He said: "Be careful, in that location's Due west.P.A.workers effectually the curve." The motorist spoke back to the homo, using the aforementioned raspy, whispering, vocalisation – "Don't worry – I WON'T WAKE 'EM UP!!"
 seven. For a more detailed clarification of public opinion during the 1981-1982 recession, see "Reagan's Recession."