Pew Daily Number

Though a majority of Americans now favor allowing gay couples to enter into civil unions (57%), roughly half the country (49%) considers homosexuality to be morally wrong.

After falling from post-inaugural highs this summer, Barack Obama’s approval rating as president has remained steady over the past few months, with a little more than half consistently approving of his performance.

Fully 86% of Latinos ages 16 to 25 are in school or the labor force; significantly fewer of their counterparts were engaged in these market-oriented activities in previous generations.

Since June support among Americans for keeping NATO troops in Afghanistan until the situation has stabilized has fallen by seven points to 50%. In that same period, the percentage of Americans who want forces removed as soon as possible has risen from 38% in June to 43% in September.

Long before little ghosts and witches filled plastic jack-o-lanterns with candy every Oct. 31, ancient Celts celebrated the festival known as Samhain, Wikipedia tells us.

As women have taken a more active role in the labor force, public opinion has become increasingly supportive of this new reality; today, only 19% agree that women should return to their traditional roles, while 75% disagree.

The media love natural disasters, and nowhere is this truer than in the sector where the damage from a flood or earthquake can be shown in all its horror: network television news.

Afghanistan President Harmid Karzai has been much in the news lately as the result of charges of corruption in the August 20 presidential election in Afghanistan as well the escalating violence in his country throughout the year.

Nearly six-in-ten adults (58%) say that Muslims are subject to a lot of discrimination, far more than say the same about Jews, evangelical Christians, atheists or Mormons.

The swine flu virus has been making headlines since April, and large majorities of Americans continue to cite it as a news story they are following closely.

The belief that the press should keep political leaders from doing things that should not be done often depends on who those political leaders are, or more specifically, which party controls the White House.

Asked if young people today have as strong a sense of right and wrong as they did, say, 50 years ago, only 18% say yes, while 79% say no according to a 2005 Pew Research poll.

Detailed questions about perceptions of Islam show that a plurality of the public (45%) says Islam is no more likely than other faiths to encourage violence among its believers; 38% take the opposite view, saying that Islam does encourage violence more than other faiths do.

Attitudes about work reflect the growing desire of an aging but healthy population to stay active well into the later years of life.

As of August 2008, 18% of Americans had given money to a political candidate, party, organization or cause in the past 12 months, and some 30% of donors gave money online.

The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows.

According to Americans the United States does not have the best health care in the world.

A slim majority of Americans (53%) know the Muslim name for God is Allah, and a similar number (52%) can correctly name the Koran as the Islamic sacred text.

Most Americans who claim a religious affiliation take a non-exclusivist view of salvation, with 65% saying that many religions can lead to eternal life, while less than one-quarter say theirs is the one, true faith leading to eternal life.