Poll: Americans Don't Support More Help For Automakers

This morning, CBS News released a poll that highlighted President Obama's approval rating – 62 percent. But there was also some interesting survey data on the economy – most notably, that Americans overwhelmingly oppose further bailouts for U.S. automakers.

Below, some of the key points from the poll:

• Americans have little sympathy for U.S. automakers facing financial difficulties. Just 18 percent think the government should provide them with additional financial assistance, and 76 percent think the government should not.
  
  Also, the public blames the automakers themselves for their current problems - by a big margin. Sixty-three percent say the problems facing the big three auto companies are mostly the result of management strategies and decisions (up from 56 percent last December), while only 24 percent say the problems are a result of economic conditions beyond the automakers' control.

(CBS)

• Most Americans still think the national economy is bad, but there is some positive news. While a majority remains concerned that someone in their household may lose a job, the percentage that is very concerned has dropped since the high reached in early February. Now, 32 percent are very concerned, down from 38 percent in late February and 44 percent (a record high in this poll) earlier that month.



• While 41 percent think the economy is getting worse, that number is down from 51 percent last month. The percentage that says the economy is getting better has more than doubled, from 8 percent in February to 19 percent now.



• The percentage of people that says the country is headed in the right direction has also been steadily rising this year – 35 percent now say that, up from a low of 7 percent last October and 23 percent last month.



• Nineteen percent think the president will be able to make real progress fixing the economy within one year. Thirty-one percent say it will take two years, twenty-one percent say it will take three to four years, 10 percent say more than four years and sixteen percent say he never will.



• Sixty percent will remain patient for one or two years to decide if the administration's economic policies are a success. But should it take longer than that for the economy to recover, just 19 percent say they will be patient. Seventeen percent (mostly Republicans) say they have lost patience already.

Click here to read the full poll (PDF)

See Also: Poll: Frustration Growing Over Bailouts

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This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,142 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone March 12-16, 2009. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

[tomrchrt]

when is cbs or somebody going to do a story on auto industry execs. gm, bob nardelli, home depot fired him because he did absolutely nothing but spend money.
it cost home depot 120 million to get rid of him.
now he is begging for money from us for general motors.
trust me, he will get a big chunk of that money.
before home depot he was cut from general motors. he was one of the first to go..
somebody say something!

[koop-a-troopa]

screwww all the auto makers they blew threw 17 billion since december unless yahoo is lieing; also they want another 20 plus billion to stay afloat now. obviously no one wants a dam gasoline running vehicle. 17 billion since december, scrap all of them and start a new auto industry based on helping our globe going hybrid or other alternate energy sources for transportation.

[bessfithian]

I don't support more bail outs either but if the auto companies go bankrupt what happens to their employees they loose their jobs and go on unemployeement then what happens to our economy?
Just look at the vehicles our car companies were making big the bigger the bettter and the more gas they used the better as well. With that being said they did not even think about what would happen if the gas prices rose above what the regular people could afford so they did not even look at making more gas efficient cars like the foriegen car makers were instead they poured more money into making suvs the bigger the better and placing higher sticker prices on them when the little people were actually buying the more efficient cars made by KIA ,TOYOTA, and HONDA....
Bessfithian

[rondq7]

Why aren't they made to go into ch. 11 and reorganize.This whole stimulus plan that has been issued has been nothing but a hoax. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The banks, the auto industry, and the housing, should not have any bail-outs. They all need to go into chapter 11, reorganize and come back a stronger more sufficient company, looking at what they've done wrong for the last 15 years. Redoing contracts.

[sjc_1]

GM has assets and could get the money, if it were not for the financial collapse. Ford is $124 billion in debt and could not get any private money if they had to.

[wilbursandersjr]

THere is enough blame to go around. It is not the Union, the Workers, the Executives, it is all of them. THe overpriced union salaries, the shoddy workmanship by employees, and management looking the other way playing see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil have caused this debacle. As for not caring about the workers, it is a matter of can we keep them afloat and survive ourselves.

[boochaka]

whitemale08 how can you say that? Unions are why the auto industry is in trouble now. Wages far exceed the quality of work put out, that's obvious by the Japanese vehicles leading the sales. Unions are forcing companies to cut jobs just to survive because of the labor costs, and do you truly think Union members would give up 10 cents to help the company survive? If GM fails it's not because American's didn't want to buy American cars because Japan brought us a better product for a better price. I've never, and I'm 57 years old, had a car or truck anywhere at all near as reliable as the Toyota's I've owned the last 15 years, and I grew up with Chevy's and Fords. I couldn't keep the front end aligned on my Ford pickup's for anything. Chevy was the better of the two but the Ford's looked better, but Toyota is just better quality for the money spent. Don't blame us for trying to survive, I can't afford to shell out all this extra money to save the Unions because they think they need $30.00 an hour, or more, to put tires on rims, or lug nuts on wheels on some assembly line.

[boochaka]

Where do you draw the line on bailouts, why just big auto companies and not small mom & pop businesses too. Are we not dividing the country yet again by wealth? If these companies fail then maybe something will inspire them to do a better job with their product and maybe not stupidly pay Union forced wages that only God Himself could afford! We all pay for in the end via the prices of cars because of overprices labor! I mean after all our country says disabled people should be able to get by on $670 a month minimum disability pay with maybe $100.00 worth of groceries??? What a backwards ideoligy !

[ivehadit9]

I don't support more bailouts either. Let the automakers go bankrupt and let the bankruptcy judge tear up the contracts and restructure from there.

[perk235]

Thanks to Wall Street Republicans we now believe manufacturing worthless derivatives and credit-default swaps is better then manufacturing real products.
Posted by whitemale08 at 11:05 PM : Mar 17, 2009
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Yes, with tax breaks to corporations for sending manufacturing jobs overseas. In the meantime, our "best and brightest" have imploded the financial system with outrageous greed and stupidity.

JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America, HSBC Bank USA and Wells Fargo lost, as of Dec 31, $587 BILLION in derivatives with more losses to come.