HKU POP SITE releases the results of second round of Budget surveyBack
| Press Release on March 3, 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Commentary | Next Release (Tentative) | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract The Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 525 Hong Kong people last Thursday night (26 February) by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that after wide coverage by the media, people's satisfaction rate of the Budget dropped further to 24%, while satisfaction rating went down to 51.0 marks. This shows that in stark contrast with last year, after digesting various information and comments at a preliminary stage, people's reaction has become even more negative. The survey also finds that around 55% to 70% are dissatisfied with some proposals of the FS, including his tax concession, job preservation and economic recovery measures. This compresses people's dissatisfaction with the government's fiscal policies to record low since 2003. However, 64% still consider Hong Kong's tax system to be fair, but 62% consider the distribution of wealth to be unreasonable. Robert Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, reminded readers that people's reaction may change after knowing even more about the Budget, and this could only be revealed by POP's follow-up survey to be conducted weeks later. The sampling error of all percentages is below +/-2 to 4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures is +/-1.7. The response rate of the survey is 66%. Points to note: * The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there. * The sample size of this survey is 525 successful interviews, not 525 x 66.5% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. * The maximum sampling error of all percentages is below +/-2 to 4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures is +/-1.7. "95% confidence level" means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-1.7 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level". * When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used, in order to match the precision level of the figures. * The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses "computerized random telephone survey" to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Background In free and democratic societies, instant surveys are indispensable sources of free information. Combined with appropriate follow-up surveys, and in parallel to expert analyses, they give a multi-dimensional picture of opinion development. They are an important part of a society's interactive development. In the United States, for example, every year after the President gives a "State of the Union" to Congress, their media would conduct instant polls to measure public opinion. For example again, whenever there are candidate debates in Taiwan and United States during presidential elections, which Hong Kong people seem to know more, there will be instant polls to gauge instant changes in candidate popularity. As a matter of fact, these professional instant polls are everywhere in advanced societies, and they are all completed within a day. Our local media and academia are already quite behind the world in this aspect. Since 1992, HKUPOP has already been conducting Policy Address instant surveys every year. From 1998 onwards, we expanded our instant surveys to cover the Budget Talks. Starting from 2008, we further enhanced our operation by splitting up our usual exercise into two rounds. In our first survey, we measure people's overall appraisal of the Budget, their rating of the Budget, their change in confidence towards Hong Kong's future, and the Financial Secretary's popularity. In our second survey, we focus on people's reactions towards major government proposals, their satisfaction with the government's fiscal policies, and other relevant issues. Today we are releasing the results of our second survey under our new operation. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Latest Figures The findings of the second round of Budget poll released by the POP SITE today have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in mid-2008. Herewith the contact information of various surveys:
Results of the second round of Budget poll, together with the instant poll, for 2008 and 2009 are tabulated below:
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale. ^ Excluding respondents who said they had not heard of the Budget/were not clear about the Budget. The sub-sample size was 669. ^^ Excluding respondents who said they had not heard of the Budget/were not clear about the Budget. The sub-sample size was 811. # Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful. Latest survey revealed that 24% of the respondents were satisfied with the Budget and 34% were dissatisfied. The average rating registered for the Budget was 51.0 marks. With respect to people's specific reactions towards the contents of this year's Budget, relevant findings are summarized below:
On the other hand, 25% of the respondents said the short-term strategy for countering financial crisis proposed by the Financial Secretary, that is, to create around 60,000 jobs and internship opportunities in the next 3 years is sufficient, 68% said not sufficient. As for the long-term strategies, 28% believed the measures proposed by Financial Secretary in the Budget could help Hong Kong economy to recover swiftly, 62% thought the opposite. 39% of the respondents thought that the tax concessions announced by the Financial Secretary were sufficient and 55% considered them insufficient. With respect to people's satisfaction with the government's strategy in monetary arrangement and other relevant issues, the figures are summarized below:
^ Collapsed from a 5-point scale. ^^ Collapsed from a 4-point scale. ^^^ Erratum: The figures in the original release were mistyped, with regret. Latest results revealed that 30% were satisfied with the government's strategy in monetary arrangement, whereas 34% were dissatisfied. With respect to Hong Kong's tax system, 64% viewed it fair, whilst 29% thought it unfair. Last of all, 29% perceived the distribution of wealth in Hong Kong reasonable, as contrast to 62% who regarded it unreasonable. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Commentary Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, first explained the concept behind the second round of Budget survey, "In free and democratic societies, instant surveys are indispensable sources of free information. For example, every year after the President of the United States gives a "State of the Union" to Congress, and every time when there is presidential election debate in the US and Taiwan, the media would complete an instant poll in just one evening to measure public opinion. Hong Kong media and academia are quite backward in this regard, so starting last year, we at POP have split up our usual instant survey operation into two rounds, just to show how Hong Kong society should move ahead." On the finding of this second Budget survey, Robert Chung observed, "Our surveys show that people's instant reaction to the Budget was far from satisfaction in the first night, as satisfaction rate was 30% only and satisfaction rating was 54.8 marks. One day later, after wide coverage by the media, satisfaction rate dropped further to 24%, while satisfaction rating went down to 51.0 marks. This shows that in stark contrast with last year, after digesting various information and comments at a preliminary stage, people's reaction has become even more negative. Of course, how people's reaction will change after knowing even more about the Budget remains to be revealed by our follow-up survey to be conducted weeks later. According to our survey, around 55% to 70% are dissatisfied with some proposals of the FS, including his tax concession, job preservation and economic recovery measures. This compresses people's dissatisfaction with the government's fiscal policies to record low since 2003. However, 64% still consider Hong Kong's tax system to be fair, but 62% consider the distribution of wealth to be unreasonable." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Next Release (Tentative)
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| | Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Commentary | Next Release (Tentative) | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
