Michael Regan

While Barack Obama’s bleak poll numbers generally are attributed in large part to the economy, relatively few Americans think a Republican president would have done a better job, according to a new Washington Post-Bloomberg poll. Twenty-three percent say the economy would be better if the GOP held the White House, 25 percent say it would […]

The field of actual and potential top-tier Republican presidential candidates may be thinning, but the number of hopefuls you never heard of keeps growing at the rate of nearly one a day, Eric Ostermeier reports at Smart Politics. As of Friday, 239 Americans had submitted statements of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission. Since mid-August, […]

Times are tough for state and local governments, and their overall employment level is down nearly half a million in the last three years, according to Stateline.org. But government employment actually has increased in some states. At opposite ends of the spectrum are Wyoming, where the government workforce grew by 11.3 percent, and Nevada, which […]

No sooner had the U.S. agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 than conventional wisdom held that the goal was unattainable, Brad Plumer writes at the Washington Posts’s Wonkblog. But a new analysis–by a climate change adviser for Shell, no less–says the nation might actually meet that target, helped […]

Battered by the recent recession, millions of Americans “enacted their own anti-poverty program” by moving in with relatives, resulting in the largest increase in multi-generation households in modern history, a new Pew Resarch Center analysis of U.S. Census data says. The number of Americans living in multi-generation households has been growing steadily since 1980, driven […]

Rick Perry and Mitt Romney may be close in polls when it comes to the Republican presidential nomination for 2012, but the Texas governor has no challenger when it comes to trotting out clichés in debates, Eric Ostermeier says at Smart Politics. In three September primaries–one in California and two in Florida–Perry racked up 33 […]

The spread of poverty across the United States beginning with the recent recession hit Latino children particularly hard, a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center says. Its analysis of 2010 U.S. Census data concludes that 6.1 young Hispanics are living in poverty–more than any other racial or ethnic group. The report says the increase […]

Only 36 percent of state voters approve of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s job performance, a new poll says, and 52 percent would vote for his 2010 Republican rival, Tom Foley, if they had it to do over again. The Malloy approval ratings reported by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic company, were even lower than the […]

More than 13 months from Election Day 2012, Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican Chris Shays are less well-known than their main rivals for their parties’ U.S. Senate nominations, but they’re better liked. And both do better than their competitors in prospective general election matchups. In a survey released Wednesday, Public Policy Polling says 70 percent […]

The technology needed to cut the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050 already exists, a statement issued by 11 of the world’s largest engineering organizations says–but not the governmental commitment to develop and use it. Technologies for generating electricity from wind, waves and the sun, growing biofuels sustainably, producing zero emissions transport, building […]

Prospective students’ ability to pay tuition and fees is becoming an increasingly-important factor in college admissions decisions, according to a survey of top admissions officials by Inside Higher Education. More than 34 percent of respondents said their institutions are focusing more attention on attracting students who can pay full tuition, according to the survey. While […]

On a jobs tour this week to launch her U.S. Senate campaign, Linda McMahon asked a Milford manufacturer the question that is standard for Republican candidates these days: Do regulations hamper your business? “He said, ‘No, not really,’” McMahon reported. A lot of experts agree, at least when it comes to creating and sustaining jobs, […]

Last night’s execution of Troy Davis, a Georgia man convicted of murdering an off-duty police officer largely on the strength of eyewitness testimony, has renewed a national debate over the accuracy of such witnesses’ identification of suspects, Maggie Clark reports at Stateline.org. The first study questioning the reliability of eyewitness accounts was published more than […]

Americans generally favor raising taxes on higher-income Americans and eliminating tax deductions for some corporations as ways of paying for President Barack Obama’s proposed jobs plan, a new Gallup poll says. In terms of the impact of the bill, 65 percent say they think it will help create jobs and 60 percent believe it will […]