Voters Express Support for Public Service Organizations That Address Climate Change
By Catherine Fraser, Margo Kenyon, and Grace Adcox
The American Climate Corps was created by the Biden administration to put young Americans to work fighting the impacts of climate change while providing training in clean energy and climate resilience. Last week, the White House hosted a swearing-in ceremony for the first cohort of more than 9,000 young Americans who will work to advance clean energy deployment, support environmental remediation efforts, manage forests, and more as members of the ACC.
In light of this news, Data for Progress partnered with The Corps Network to assess public sentiment around service corps and their relationship to climate change. New polling from Data for Progress suggests that concerns about climate change are increasingly bipartisan, with nearly half of Republicans (46%) stating that they are at least somewhat concerned about the issue. Notably, voters between ages 18 and 34 (82%) are much more concerned about climate change than older voters (63% among those 60 and older, and 71% among those 35-59).
In alignment with broadening national concerns about climate change, more than half of voters (53%) agree with a statement claiming that national public service organizations can fill the urgent need to address climate change and pollution. Democrats (71%), Independents (52%), and voters across all age groups agree more with this statement than an opposing statement, which says national public service organizations should be focusing on other immediate challenges. Just over a third of respondents (35%) overall agree with that statement.
When asked why people may be interested in joining a public service organization, voters say earning a living wage (38%), making a difference in their own community (32%) or any community (30%), and receiving on-the-job training (29%) are the top reasons they believe someone would join. Voters ages 18-34 share the same top two preferences, with on-the-job training being third-most important, followed by protecting nature, gaining hands-on experience doing impactful work, and receiving student loan assistance.
Next, voters were shown a split test to understand whether describing the American Climate Corps as a climate policy works as effectively as framing it as a public service program without mentioning climate explicitly. All respondents read a description of the ACC that explained that the 20,000 Americans hired over the first year of the program will work on conservation and related efforts while receiving on-the-job training opportunities, assistance paying for school or student loans, and pathways into civil service and clean energy jobs. For half of respondents, this program was called the American Climate Corps, while for the other half of respondents, this program was described more generally as a “new national service program.”
More than three-quarters of voters across both halves of the split test express support for the program, regardless of the way to which it’s referred. These results suggest that referencing climate or climate change to discuss the program and its aims does not provoke backlash from respondents, given robust levels of support for the American Climate Corps across both policy framings. Preferences by age vary slightly, with 18- to 34-year-olds more in support when the term “climate” is used in the policy name.
These results suggest that voters on both sides of the aisle are increasingly concerned about climate change, and are in favor of national service programs that actively play a role in combating it.
Catherine Fraser (@cathwfraser) is the Senior Climate and Energy Program Associate at Data for Progress.
Margo Kenyon is the Climate and Energy Program Intern at Data for Progress.
Grace Adcox (@GraceAdcox)is the Senior Climate Strategist at Data for Progress.