Thirty percent (30%) of voters believe that the president, members of Congress, and top government officials run the country should be paid more than corporate CEOs. A Scott Rasmussen survey found that 57% disagree and 13% are not sure.
Those totals include 13% who Strongly Agree and 39% who Strongly Disagree.
A modest plurality of Democrats (48%) believe government officials should be paid more than corporate CEOs. However, 68% of Republicans and 62% of Independent voters disagree. The partisan differences likely reflect a fundamentally different understanding of government’s role in society.
There is also a substantial divide along educational lines. Most voters with a postgraduate degree (55%) believe government officials should be paid more than corporate CEOs. Among all other voters, that view is rejected by a 60% to 26% margin.
The question began with a potentially misleading statement that may have impacted the results: “Since the president, members of Congress, and top government officials run the country…” In reality, those political leaders are responsible for running the government rather than the country.
Survey data over the years has consistently shown that voters believe positive change in America generally comes from outside the political system. When it comes to making important decisions about the nation’s future, 61% of voters trust everyday Americans more than government leaders. Just 19% place more trust in government leaders while 21% are not sure.
Additionally, when the federal government tries to manage the economy, 68% of voters believe it generally does more harm than good.
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Note: Neither Scott Rasmussen, ScottRasmussen.com, nor RMG Research, Inc. have any affiliation with Rasmussen Reports. While Scott Rasmussen founded that firm, he left more than seven years ago and has had no involvement since that time.
Methodology
The survey of 1,200 Registered Voters was conducted online by Scott Rasmussen on September 8, 2021. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Certain quotas were applied, and the sample was lightly weighted by geography, gender, age, race, education, internet usage, and political party to reasonably reflect the nation’s population of Registered Voters. Other variables were reviewed to ensure that the final sample is representative of that population.
The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 2.8 percentage points.
