by david_shankbone
Some Say Occupy Wall Street Protesters Aimless; Facts Say Otherwise – Forbes
[Via Forbes]
There has been a lot said about the lack of vision, lack of specific demands, and a disparity of beliefs and goals among the Occupy Wall Street protesters in the media in the past several weeks. A survey of the protestors shows that none of these criticisms are true.
In an effort to find out what, if any, unifying ideas the Occupy Wall Street participants have, I conducted a survey of protesters to see what they believe and what they want from the protest – something that perhaps has not yet been done by either the mainstream media reporting on the protesters or even the Occupy Wall Street organizers themselves.
[More]
Nice attempt to get some actual numbers and perform some empirical research.
If he polled 50 people out of 1000, we can actually calculate how well those responses statistically fit the entire group. That is, how well that 50 might represent the actual numbers if the whole 1000 had been polled.
The standard for statistical significance is the 95% confidence level. That means there is only a 1 in 20 chance that the results are not correct, within a defined confidence interval – the error often reported on a poll.
So, when a poll states that the error rate is ±4%, that means that there is a 95% chance that the real value you would get if you polled the entire population on a question is within 4% of the polled value.
Based on a population size of 1000, he would need to poll about 270 to get all the answers down to an error rate of 5%. Interviewing a smaller cohort raises the confidence interval.
Interestingly, with these sorts of small groups, the confidence interval goes down as the percentage agreeing on a question goes up. If you polled 50 people out of 1000 and the results were 52% for and 48%, the error rate would be about ±14%, meaning you really could not tell which response was really the most popular.
But, if the numbers for those 50 people were 99% for and 1% against, the error rate drops to ±2.7% You can be pretty confident that the final numbers if you polled everyone would be between 96% and 100%.
Let’s, then, look at the responses he got.
98% say that healthcare should be free. That results in a confidence level of about ±4%. If the whole 1000 people had been polled, we can be confident that the actual percentage would be between 94% and 100%.
About 33% believe the government will do a bad job managing healthcare. This gives ±13%. So the ‘real’ answer is between 20% and 46%. Harder to know what the whole group would feel.
Let’s do this for the rest of his questions – I’ll bold the confidence interval:
- 80% ±11% of those polled said that the rich should pay higher taxes and that it’s fair that approximately the top 10% of tax payers pay more than 70% of the taxes in the US and about 40% of employed people pay no income tax.
- 93% ±7% say that student loan debt should be forgiven
- 98% ±4% believe that Insurance companies make too much money and some of their profits should be taken to pay for more healthcare for others
- 95% ±5% believe that drug prices should be controlled
- 44% ±13% believe that instead of spending money on ObamaCare, we should spend it on jobs today, while 30% ±12% believe that we should do both, and 27% ±12% say ObamaCare was fine use of money
- 88% ±9% agree with the statement that “The government should put some controls on CEO pay – like limited to 20x or 30x the lowest paid employee.”
- 93% ±7% believe that communications like cell phone and internet access be a right and not just reserved for the rich and we should have free internet and cell phone service as a national goal.
- 54% ±14% do not believe that the Obama stimulus program was a good idea.
- 84% ±10% said they think that if a bank decides to implement a $5 debit card fee, the government should not allow it, while 16% ±10% said let them do what they want – customers can move.
The group showed lack of consensus on 3 of the 11 questions. On the rest, they show a much more coherent point of view that often presented by the MSM.
Even with the small sample size, there are statistically significant findings. And it shows that there are some strong views shared by the entire group, even if a few of them are naive, crazy or simply attention-seekers.
As David wrote:
So after a day spent surveying a fair-sized group of the Occupy Wall Street Protesters, did I come away convinced to pick up the cause? No, but it is clear that although many might seek to marginalize their ideas and concerns, or disagree with the solutions such as taxing the rich or forgiving student loans or free cell phones for everyone, the protester’s over-arching concerns of corporate greed, the poor jobs picture, and health care costs mirror that of many others people across the country.
by 
