An examination of statements by the president and by witnesses at congressional hearings has revealed that policymakers increasingly are using public opinion to bolster support for their policies. This trend may indicate a more responsive democracy, but in most cases policymakers are making general—and not always accurate—claims (see box).

IPR Director Fay Lomax Cook, former IPR graduate fellow Jason Barabas, and Benjamin I. Page (IPR-Political Science) came to these conclusions after investigating the issue of Social Security in their IPR working paper, “Invoking public opinion: Polls, policy debates, and the future of Social Security.” The connection between public opinion and this specific public policy should give a better understanding of elite behavior and the inner workings and degree of democratic responsiveness in the United States.

The public should expect that political leaders and policy experts would draw upon polling data to inform themselves about public opinion—perhaps to respond faithfully to the public or to prove that their own positions are consistent with the popular will. The public also might expect that any claims they make about public preferences would be accurate, backed by evidence. To test these expectations, the authors catalogued the ways policymakers invoked public opinion about Social Security from 1993 to 1999 and compared their claims with relevant public opinion data from the archives of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

Social Security became a signature policy issue of President Bill Clinton, and during his tenure he increased both his references to Social Security and public opinion on the issue. Policymakers’ claims about the issue had to do with confidence in the future of Social Security, the public’s desire for reform, the program’s popularity, and support for presidential initiatives and positions. But when the president invoked public opinion, the majority of his claims about public opinion (70%) were general, as were those of congressional witnesses (73%).

For an issue to be given high priority on the national agenda, a case must be made that it deserves attention. Most policymakers who invoked public opinion on Social Security claimed that confidence in it has declined. Clinton and those at congressional hearings claimed that low confidence in the future of Social Security indicated a need for change. But polling data indicates that while public confidence was low, it has been that way for some time—since the 1970s. The most frequently cited claim—that young people are more likely to believe in UFOs than to believe they will receive Social Security when they retire—rests on weak polling data and has been challenged by other polls. Yet the statement’s shock value made it an attractive sound bite to politicians eager to prove a need to reform the program.

It is clear that policymakers will continue to use public opinion data as they promote their specific policy reforms. To ensure they use that data responsibly, the authors call for an impartial body to make sense of public opinion data and make recommendations for the kinds of questions that might be asked to better understand what people think.