HKU POP releases the third survey on this year's BudgetBack
| Press Release on March 29, 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Indepth Analysis | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract
The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,009 Hong Kong people from 10 to 16 March by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers, we find that as the Financial Secretary revised the Budget in early March, people's satisfaction of the Budget has rebounded dramatically. First, dissatisfaction rate soars from 35% in our instant survey to 53% in our second survey, then drops to 45% in this third survey, while satisfaction rate goes back to the level registered in our instant survey. Net satisfaction narrows to negative 16 percentage points, but is still poorer than the negative 8 percentage points registered in the instant survey. In-depth analyses show that the post-80s youngsters are more dissatisfied with the Budget than the non-post-80s, while the grassroots are more satisfied than other social strata. The rating of the Budget now stands at 48.5 points, after a recovery of 6.8 points, but still lower than the 51.5 registered in our instant survey. On the proposal of increasing land supply, on various relief measures, and also on the government's fiscal policies and general responsibilities, people still shake their heads, but are feeling better in general because of the revisions. People continue to consider Hong Kong's tax system fair, but the distribution of wealth unreasonable. Finally, 25% say they have increased their confidence in the Financial Secretary after he revised the Budget, 30% say their confidence has decreased, while 43% remain unchanged. It seems that people's anger has somewhat subsided after the Budget is revised, but the situation is still grave, and the government should remain cautious. The maximum sampling error of all percentages is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figure is +/-1.6. The response rate of the survey is 66%.
Points to note: [1] The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there. [2] The overall sample size of this survey is 1,009 successful interviews, not 1,009 x 65.6% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. [3] The maximum sampling error of all percentages is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figure is +/-1.6. "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 rating not more than +/-1.6 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level". [4] 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. [5] 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
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. In 2008, we revised our research design by splitting up our instant survey into two rounds, while our follow-up survey operation weeks later remains intact, to become the third survey under our new design. Starting 2011, we revised our design to concentrate on people's appraisal of the Budget and FS's popularity in our instant survey, and move the remaining questions to our follow-up survey. The third survey released today is the first of its type. We believe this is a better way to study public opinion on these issues: measuring people's instant reaction first, and then repeat these measurements later to find out people's more matured reaction.
For this year's Budget, in our first survey, we measured people's overall appraisal of the Budget, their rating of the Budget, and the Financial Secretary's popularity. Our results were released on February 24. For 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. Our results were released on March 1 respectively. Today we are releasing the results of our third and last survey. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Latest Figures
The findings of the Budget follow-up 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 2010 year-end. Herewith the contact information of various surveys:
As different questions involve different sub-samples, the sample errors will vary accordingly. The table below briefly shows the relationship between sampling errors and sample size for the readers to capture the corresponding changes:
Results of the Budget follow-up poll, together with the first two surveys, are tabulated below:
[9] Excluding respondents who had not heard of/were not clear about the Budget. [10] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean. [11] Collapsed from a 4-point scale. [12] 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. [13] Question wordings in the second survey were "In light of inflation, Financial Secretary proposed a few measures to soothe people's pressure, including waiving rates for 2011-12, subject to a ceiling of $1,500 per quarter, granting each residential electricity account a subsidy of $1,800, paying two months' rent for public housing tenants, raising the child and parents allowance by 20 per cent, and the one-off injection of $6,000 into the MPF accounts of all MPF scheme members, but will not return the tax. Do you think these relief measures are sufficient?", and in the third survey were changed to "In light of inflation, Financial Secretary proposed a few measures to soothe people's pressure, including waiving rates for 2011-12, subject to a ceiling of $1,500 per quarter, granting each residential electricity account a subsidy of $1,800, paying two months' rent for public housing tenants, raising the child and parents allowance by 20 per cent, and giving $6,000 to every Hong Kong citizen aged 18 or above, but will not return the tax. Do you think these relief measures are sufficient?". The third survey conducted in early and mid March revealed that, 29% of the respondents were satisfied with the Budget and 45% were dissatisfied. The mean score is 2.7 marks, meaning close to "half-half" in general. The average rating registered for the Budget was 48.5 marks. 20% were satisfied with the government's strategy in monetary arrangement, whereas 52% were dissatisfied. The mean score is 2.5 marks, meaning in between "quite dissatisfied" and "half-half". On the other hand, 28% of the respondents said HKSAR Government has fulfilled "its responsibility to create the environment, guarantee equal opportunity, ensure fair competition, and tackling fluctuation of the economy or the breaking down of market with appropriate policies", 63% said it has not. As for the measures of ensuring a stable development of property market, 24% believed the measures proposed could stabilize the property market, 66% thought the opposite. 46% of the respondents thought that the measures to tackle inflation announced by the Financial Secretary were sufficient and 49% considered them not sufficient. Regarding the revision of Budget earlier made by Financial Secretary, 25% had confidence towards him increased, 43% remained the same, while 30% had confidence decreased. With respect to Hong Kong's tax system, 61% viewed it fair, whilst 30% thought it unfair. Last of all, 23% perceived the distribution of wealth in Hong Kong reasonable, as contrast to 67% who regarded it unreasonable. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indepth Analysis
In the survey, we also asked respondents for their age. If they were reluctant to give their exact age, they could give us a range. According to their answers, we grouped them into 18-29, 30-49, and 50 years or older. Herewith further analysis of people's satisfaction rate of the Budget by their age:
[15] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean. Besides, we also asked respondents to classify themselves which one of the five social strata they belonged to. The options were: upper, upper-middle, middle-middle, lower-middle and lower stratum or grassroots. According to the choice of respondents, we grouped them into relatively upper, relatively middle and relatively lower strata, or in short form upper, middle and lower strata. Each stratum contains about one-third of the sample. The following table shows the mapping between respondents' choice and their final grouping:
Herewith further analysis by respondents' social strata:
[17] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "As the Financial Secretary revised the Budget in early March, people's satisfaction of the Budget has rebounded dramatically. First, dissatisfaction rate soars from 35% in our instant survey to 53% in our second survey, then drops to 45% in this third survey, while satisfaction rate goes back to the level registered in our instant survey. Net satisfaction narrows to negative 16 percentage points, but is still poorer than the negative 8 percentage points registered in the instant survey. In-depth analyses show that the post-80s youngsters are more dissatisfied with the Budget than the non-post-80s, while the grassroots are more satisfied than other social strata. The rating of the Budget now stands at 48.5 points, after a recovery of 6.8 points, but still lower than the 51.5 registered in our instant survey. On the proposal of increasing land supply, on various relief measures, and also on the government's fiscal policies and general responsibilities, people still shake their heads, but are feeling better in general because of the revisions. People continue to consider Hong Kong's tax system fair, but the distribution of wealth unreasonable. Finally, 25% say they have increased their confidence in the Financial Secretary after he revised the Budget, 30% say their confidence has decreased, while 43% remain unchanged. It seems that people's anger has somewhat subsided after the Budget is revised, but the situation is still grave, and the government should remain cautious."
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Future Release (Tentative)
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| Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Indepth Analysis | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
