A new Harris Poll finds that among Americans who favor change, more people support stricter regulation of business rather than less.
However, there are significantly different attitudes among Americans depending on what is being regulated.
Overall, a 2–to–1 plurality of respondents favor more strict regulation of business and majorities or substantial pluralities favor stricter regulation in 12 out of 13 areas, from food safety to executive pay. The one important exception is that a 3–to–1 plurality (45% to 14%) favors less strict regulation of small businesses.
Specifically, 40% of respondents say they favor more strict regulation; 19% would prefer less strict regulation. Another 27% want no change in regulation and 14% say they don’t know, according to the online survey of 2,503 adults conducted in May by Harris Interactive.
A 64% majority favors stricter regulation of big business, but 45% favor less regulation of small business.
In addition to big and small business, the survey asked people whether they’d like to see more or less regulation in the following areas:
- Air & water pollution
- Advertising claims
- Banks & financial services
- Consumer product safety
- Environmental safety
- Executive pay & bonuses
- Food safety
- Health & safety in the workplace
- Pharmaceutical safety
- Prices
- Profits
About three–quarters of Americans (70%) favor stricter regulation of food safety, pharmaceutical safety, and executive pay and bonuses. Only 40% favor more price regulation. A similar number (41%) want additional regulation of profits.
The strongest support for stricter regulation relates to food safety (73%), executive pay and bonuses (70%), pharmaceutical safety (70%), banks and financial services (69%), air and water pollution (68%), consumer product safety (67%) and environmental safety (66%).
Smaller majorities support tighter regulation of advertising claims (65%), big business (64%), and health and safety in the workplace (54%).
Across the board, support for regulation is much stronger among Democrats than Republicans, with independents, perhaps predictably, in the middle.
But even majorities of Republicans favor stricter regulation of food safety (64%), executive compensation (57%), pharmaceutical safety (61%), banks and financial services (56%), air and water pollution (52%), consumer product safety (56%) and advertising claims (56%).
About the poll
This Harris Poll was conducted online from May 10–17. Harris Interactive surveyed 2,503 U.S. adults. Age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted to reflect U.S. demographics. For complete poll results, check the News section of Harris Interactive’s Web site, www.harrisinteractive.com.
