WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — A new poll of more than 500 Kansanians shows the state’s economy still has work to do before residents feel comfortable again.
Fort Hays State University’s Docking Institute of Public Affairs released its Kansas Speaks Fall 2022 poll Tuesday noon. The poll is co-sponsored by the Wichita Journalism Collaborative, including KSN News. For the survey, 520 people answered an online questionnaire between September 19th and October 2nd.
One of the central topics of the survey is the economy. The prices of food, housing, heating and healthcare are rising and voters will take these costs into account in November’s general election, according to a recent poll.
Will the Kansas economy seriously threaten the family’s well-being?
In the Kansas Speaks poll, 77.4% of respondents expressed some level of concern that the state’s economy will seriously threaten the well-being of themselves or their families over the next year.
More than 19% said they were “very concerned,” up 6 percentage points from last year’s poll.
The number of people who are not worried at all has fallen by a percentage point, from 23.7% last year to 22.6% this year.
If you break respondents down by age, those aged 35 to 44 are the most worrying. Women are more concerned than men, whites are more concerned than minorities, and Republicans are more concerned than Democrats.
Those least concerned are people making $75,000 or more per year and those with a higher level of education.
Evaluation of the economy of Kansas
Given these concerns, it’s probably no surprise that more respondents rated Kansas’ economy as bad or very bad this year. Negative ratings have increased by 3 percentage points to 13.9% since the previous year.
The number of respondents who think Kansas’ economy is good, very good or excellent fell 4 percentage points from 59.6% last year to 55.5% this year. The number of people who think Kansas’ economy is fair increased 1.3 percentage points from last year’s poll.
Looking at respondents’ socioeconomic characteristics, Kansans age 65 and older rated the economy higher than younger Kansans. Those making less than $35,000 a year rated Kansas’ economy more harshly. Democrats and Republicans rated the state’s economy higher than those who identify as independent. Respondents with a post-secondary education were also more positive about the economy.
Whites gave the Kansas economy lower and very poor ratings than those who do not identify as white (15.8 to 7%). Both men and women are about equal in terms of positive reviews, but the percentage of men who give Kansas’ economy poor reviews is higher than that of women (15.3% to 12.5%).
How has the Kansas economy changed in a year?
When asked how the Kansas economy had changed over the past 12 months, 46.1% of respondents said it had gotten worse. That’s 13 percentage points worse than last year’s 33%.
Some people had a positive opinion – 18.4% said that the state’s economy is getting better. However, this is a drop of 6 percentage points from last year’s survey.
If you look at political parties, 55.7% of Republican respondents chose “deteriorate,” compared to 33.5% of Democratic respondents. Of those who identified as white, 50.9% said it was “getting worse,” compared to 29.2% of minorities.
In the income category, 50.4% of those in the mid-range of $35,000 to $74,999 reported “getting worse,” compared to 40.4% of those earning less than them and 47.4% of those who earn more than they do.
The importance of education for economic development
The Kansas Speaks poll also sought to determine whether respondents believe that a particular level of education is more important to the state’s overall economic development.
More than 53% consider technical and vocational schools to be very important. Universities and adult education centers took second and third place with 45.5% and 45.2% respectively.
More than 84% of respondents consider technical and vocational education to be important or very important for economic development. Nearly 82% consider a community college education to be important or very important. And 80% think college education is important or very important.
However, 3.1% said that universities are not important at all. This also applied to the adult education centres. Two point three percent of those surveyed state that technical and vocational schools are not important at all.
The survey breaks down which respondents are more supportive of higher education for economic development in Kansas. For example, 59.9% of Democrats believe a college degree is very important compared to 33.5% of Republicans. On the other hand, 4% of Republican respondents said that a college degree is not at all important for the state’s economic development, compared to 2.1% of Democrats.
Respondents from both parties place high value on technical and vocational education – 64.3% of Democrats and 45.6% of Republicans consider them very important.
When you compare men’s and women’s attitudes towards higher education, the figures are similar when it comes to the importance of higher education for the economy – 77.7% of men and 78.5% of women consider it important or very important. But 4.8% of men who answered say it doesn’t matter at all, compared to 1.3% of women.
Both male and female respondents showed even stronger support for the impact of technical and vocational education on the economy – 83.2% of men and 81.8% of women consider it important to very important.
All three household income levels in the survey are also strong believers in the impact of higher education on the economy, but place the highest importance on vocational and technical education. Of those with a household income of $75,000 or more, 80.9% believe a college degree is important or very important, compared to 74.1% of those with a household income of less than $35,000.
84.5% of higher-income respondents consider professional and technical education to be important or very important, compared to 75% of lower-income respondents.
Perhaps the most interesting demographic group in the survey is the one based on education. 83.8% of those who have a college degree or higher believe that a college education is important or very important for the economic development of the state, but 0.5% of them believe that it is not important at all.
On the other hand, respondents with a tertiary education feel even more confident in the power of vocational and technical education – 87.4% consider it important or very important.
The Docking Institute conducts the Kansas Speaks poll to measure public opinion on key issues nationwide. This year, the Wichita Journalism Collaborative—with financial support from the Wichita Community Foundation—joined the institute as a co-sponsor of the survey.
For a full explanation of the methodology, see page 7 of the survey report.
The Wichita Journalism Collaborative includes: KSN-TV, KMUW, The Wichita Eagle, The Active Age, The Community Voice, The Journal (Kansas Leadership Center), The Sunflower, the Wichita Public Library, Planeta Venus, and the Elliott School of Communication in Wichita State University.
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