How Americans Feel About Socialism in the Midst of the Coronavirus Crisis
By Bennett Fleming-Wood and Brian Schaffner
The coronavirus pandemic has taken an enormous human and economic toll on the United States, leaving an unprecedented number of Americans unemployed and lacking financial security. Given these circumstances, it may be natural to expect people to express a desire for a more socialist approach to government policy. Yet, Americans have traditionally had an aversion to socialism as a label. A 2019 Gallup poll found that over half of Americans believe some form of socialism would be a bad thing for the country and a 2018 YouGov poll showed that over half of Democrats and two thirds of Republicans would be uncomfortable with a socialist candidate.
However, there are signs that Americans warm to socialism in the face of economic crisis.
Recent research shows that after the 2008 Great Recession, more Americans support socialism and associate socialism more with social benefits than with Cold War communism. Additionally, the recent rise of Democratic Socialists such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Senator Bernie Sanders shows increasing acceptance and support towards the socialist label.
Are Americans showing even more open-mindedness towards socialism during the current economic crisis? Since April, the Data for Progress tracking poll has been asking Americans, “Would some form of socialism be a good thing or a bad thing for the country as a whole?” Responses are evenly divided. While 35 percent of respondents believe some form of socialism is a good thing, a slightly higher percentage (38 percent) believe socialism would be a bad thing in the United States. The remaining 27 percent of respondents report no opinion.
When asked if they feel positively, neutrally, or negatively towards the term socialism, respondents are less positive towards the term. More than four-in-five respondents are negative or neutral towards socialism, while only around 18 percent feel positively towards the term. So while many Americans think some form of socialism would be a good thing, a much smaller group express completely positive views towards the term.
While the label of socialism remains politically divisive, support for socialist policy proposals is less so. In the same tracking poll, we have been capturing opinions on a large number of progressive policies. Here, we focus on four policies that can most easily be considered socialist:
A single-payer government insurance system, sometimes called Medicare for All
A long-term expansion of unemployment insurance to ensure American workers have income when they lose their jobs
The government guaranteeing a job for all Americans if they can’t find one in the private sector at all times
Universal paid sick and family medical leave
We tallied how many of these proposals respondents supported and we plot that figure in the graph below. Over one-third of Americans support all 4 of these socialist policies, and more than half of Americans support at least three of these four proposals. Only about 15 percent of Americans support none of the five socialist policies. Overall, support for socialist policies appears to be significantly higher than support for socialism.
But how closely are these two dynamics related? They are in fact pretty well correlated. The next plot shows net positive ratings of the term socialism (the percent saying it would be a good thing minus the percent saying it would be a bad thing) depending on how many socialist policies a respondent supported. There is a clear linear relationship between supporting socialist policies and supporting socialism. However, support for socialist policies is generally higher. Only respondents supporting at least 3 of the 4 socialist policies are more likely to say that socialism would be a good thing than a bad thing. Respondents who supported half of the four socialist proposals still had clear net negative feelings towards socialism in the United States.
The next figure examines attitudes towards socialism by generation. Previous polling shows that the most recent economic crisis led to generational gaps in attitudes towards socialism in which younger generations impacted by the Great Recession favor socialism more than older generations who grew up during the Cold War. In the midst of another economic crisis, are there still generational gaps in attitudes towards socialism?
Consistent with previous research, older respondents are less favorable towards both socialism and socialist policies when compared to younger generations. Gen Xers stand out, however; while they are just as supportive of socialist policies as younger citizens, they like the term socialism significantly less. By contrast, Millennials and Gen Z are not only supportive of socialist policies, but also show relatively strong affinity for the socialist label, supporting research that generations who didn’t live through the Red Scare are more comfortable with socialism.
The tracking poll also asked respondents if they had a positive, negative, or neutral view towards “capitalism” and “the free market.” The next plot compares attitudes on socialism with those for capitalism and the free market. Here we can see a stark generational divide; older Americans are much more positive towards capitalism than socialism compared to younger generations. While over 60 percent of the Silent generation supports capitalism, slightly over 5 percent supports socialism. However, those gaps shrink for younger respondents. Gen Z and Millennials are only about 4 points more supportive of capitalism than socialism.
The free market is generally rated more favorably than capitalism – Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X are over 10 points more supportive of the free market than they are of capitalism. By contrast, the Silent Generation expresses equally positive support for both the free market and capitalism.
As the country attempts to grapple the economic toll of coronavirus in the midst of a presidential campaign, it is especially important to consider how undecided voters view socialism. The next graph shows that undecided voters, while more supportive of socialist policies than Trump voters, are still relatively lukewarm when it comes to both the socialism label and uniform support for socialist policies.
Nearly half of Biden supporters say socialism would be good for the country while a similar percentage of his backers also support all four socialist policies. In fact, the average Biden voter supports 3 out of the 4 socialist policies we asked about. Notably, even the average Trump voter indicated support for 1.9 of the socialist policies. Undecided voters find themselves, not surprisingly, in between – they supported 2.4 socialist policies, on average.
While Trump tried to take advantage of low support for socialism as a label in his 2019 State of the Union Address by declaring that “socialism destroys nations”, the country is now experiencing a devastating pandemic and economic crisis during which democratic socialist policies are highly popular. Biden could take advantage of relatively high support for socialist policies amongst many Americans by adopting some of these proposals.
Authorship & Methodology
Brian F. Schaffner (@b_schaffner) is the Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies at Tisch College and the Department of Political Science at Tufts University.
Bennett Fleming-Wood is a rising senior at Tufts University majoring in political science.
The Data for Progress coronavirus tracking poll is fielded each week using respondents recruited via Lucid. This post uses all data collected from April 14th - May 26th. Post-stratification weights are implemented to make each sample nationally representative of American adults by gender, age, region, education, race, and the interaction of education and race. The raw data for the tracking poll can be found here.