Details about a multi-year Social Security survey have surfaced this week after The Associated Press obtained government documents relating to the tax-dollar-funded effort.
The reports show that both the Clinton and Bush administrations have spent a total of $2 million to poll the public on its opinion of Social Security. However, the questions and guidance of the survey seem slightly off-centered.
The Clinton administration hired the Gallup Organization in 1998, according to the AP, to figure out if people thought the Social Security program saved older Americans from poverty. President George W. Bush's administration, meanwhile, has directed its questions toward the theory of private investment plans.
If it's a fair, accurate and scientific survey, we expect that questions would not need to be guided at all. In fact, they shouldn't be.
By nature, surveys can be easily misguided and misreported. If you ask statisticians or economists about their abilities manipulate numbers, you'll never hear the end of it. Part of the beauty, and then again, the downfall, of statistical polls is that they can be (mis)presented to an audience depending on the agenda of the organization.
When survey questions are directed toward a certain goal, they often tend to lead participants toward certain answers. Statisticians go to great lengths to make sure surveys are open-ended and well-rounded enough that they will not guide or mislead participants into answering a certain way. Everything from the tone of a question and the order of its answers to the positioning of words in a multiple-choice response can alter or persuade participants.
Both administrations' surveys feature questions pointed towards the respective administration's goals, with questions only offering multiple-choice responses to be ranked and newer polls asking questions based upon what "will happen" if the current system is not changed.
Though these surveys are a far cry from becoming propaganda, something Bush has come under heavy fire for in recent months, they certainly do their part in questioning the true goal of both administrations for backing this survey.
It's important to say that neither poll mentioned either president in its questioning and that a White House spokesman told the AP he was unaware of any involvement from the White House. Nonetheless, if government officials really think this is a good use of tax-payer dollars, perhaps they should ensure the survey really represents the true, honest opinions of those tax payers -- not the opinions they were lead to expressing.
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