The Voice of the Voter survey released over the weekend shows that a lot of people in the Rochester area are less than confident about their financial future.
In terms of what issues area voters feel are the most important facing New York State along with Monroe County and the City of Rochester, problems with the economy came in number one. 74 percent of those surveyed are concerned about their own job security or the job security of close family members.
Amit Batabyal is a professor of economics at RIT.. He says that the U.S economy has been improving over the last several years. But he says one reason why people are somewhat negative about their job prospects, is because they just haven't felt that uptick in the economy.
"The reason why they're not seeing that is because wage growth has largely stagnated and you're not seeing the kind of rising wages that usually accompanies a rapidly increasing economy."
One of the people who responded to this survey, James Higgins of Henrietta says the economy is a big issue for him, especially the ongoing rise in his expenses.
"Obviously if my school tax and property tax keep getting raised and raised and raised, that's going to be inconvenient for me, health insurance; you have to account all of that," Higgins told WXXI News.
As reported over the weekend, the poll had also showed that 63 percent of those surveyed felt Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren’s job performance was “just fair” or “poor” and 57 percent felt the same way about Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks.
People in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives got the worst numbers, with more than 70 percent of those surveyed feeling their performance is “just fair” or “poor.”
73 percent of those responding to the survey live in the suburbs in Monroe County and 27 percent live in the City of Rochester. Pollster Larry Harris says that disparity is not unusual, because it generally reflects where the most number of registered voters live in the area that was surveyed.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for Mayor Lovely Warren issued this statement:
"If a poll is going to be conducted about the City and its Mayor, then they should poll actual City voters. If a poll is going to ask about race relations in our City, then it should be more inclusive of minority voters. This poll, as always, is not reflective of the electorate in the City of Rochester. The Voice of the Voter partners should be ashamed to release a poll with a 78 percent white and a 73 percent suburban sample size. Polls like these are flawed, and only perpetuate the feelings of disenfranchisement among City voters."
500 registered voters were interviewed by telephone for this poll, (both landline and cell phone), on October 13-16. The margin for error is plus or minus 4.5 percent.
Voice of the Voter is a collaborative effort of WXXI Radio & TV, The Democrat & Chronicle, 13WHAM-TV, and WDKX 103.9.
The poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research of Washington, D.C., for the Voice of the Voter initiative. Voice of the Voter is funded in part by a grant from the Community Foundation in Rochester.
You can get more details about the Voice of the Voter survey results here.
