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2 Jan, 2015 22:03

Obama, Congress and political conflict: US govt tops list of Americans’ concerns in 2014

Obama, Congress and political conflict: US govt tops list of Americans’ concerns in 2014

The Americans have called the country’s weak government leadership their top concern and the main problem faced by the US in 2014, a survey by Gallup said.

"In 2014, four issues generated enough public concern over enough months for at least 10 percent of Americans, on average, to identify each of them as the nation's most important problem," the Gallup poll read. "Complaints about government leadership including President Barack Obama, the Republicans in Congress and general political conflict led the list, at 18 percent."

It is the first time ever in Gallup records that dissatisfaction with the way the US is governed has been named the primary concern by the population and the first since 2007 when the economy is not number one among concern for Americans.

The general state of economy, which occupied the top spot in sad list for seven consecutive years, has dropped to a narrow second with 17 per cent.

Cluster of Concerns Vie for Top U.S. Problem in 2014... http://t.co/IhJmyqoqDypic.twitter.com/nZPRpbMcUr

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) January 2, 2015

During the past year, the Americans were also concerned by the unemployment rate (15 per cent), healthcare (10 per cent) and immigration (8 per cent).

Meanwhile, the issue of terrorism worried only 2 per cent of the respondents, just like national security and wars.

Gallup stressed that, unlike previous years, the survey didn’t reveal a single, dominant concern due to “unemployment and gas prices falling, the US not being involved in any major wars and scaling back operations in Afghanistan, and no acts of domestic terrorism occurring.”

“The dispersion of public concern seen in 2014 may also have implications for the 2016 presidential election. Should it persist, the lack of a single defining public issue could make candidates' task of honing a message for the election more complex,” the company said on its website.

The survey was based on the of 12 monthly Gallup Poll Social Series, which were based on telephone interviews conducted with a random sample of approximately a thousand adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 US states.

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