The Polls: Attitudes Toward Unemployment.

The Western economies have had to cope with difficulties since the early 1970s. Economic problems-specifically inflation, cost of living, high interest rates, unemployment-have been mentioned most frequently for years, in the United States as well as in Great Britain, in response to the question regularly asked in opinion polls: "What is the most important problem facing the country today?" In the course of 1982, 49 percent of employed Americans considered it not at all likely that they would become unemployed within a year, whereas 66 percent had thought so in 1979 (AIPO). In January 1983, only 27 percent of the population were still convinced that it was not at all likely that an adult in the family would be out of work within a year (CBS). According to a CBS survey of respondents in the United States who had had personal experience with unemployment in the year preceding the investigation, the consequences of unemployment most frequently mentioned were: "cutting back on the quality of the food bought" and "taking money out of savings in order to make ends meet"; 47 percent stated that the family had more conflicts and arguments than usual during this period. The people in Great Britain have been regularly asked since 1972 what they felt to be the cause of the high unemployment figures, but the only clear trend in the responses is that fewer and fewer people put the blame on the employers.