Katrina Relief Effort Raises Concern Over Excessive Spending, Essay Example

In our work we are going to view the sociological research devoted to the financial side of the Katrina relief effort as an indicator of the financial state of the Americans on the whole. The survey was conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International among 1,500 adults, 18 years of age or older, in October, 2005.

First, according to the research, the majority of respondents approved of the sum of money spent on rebuilding the demaged region. However, there is no general opinion on the question if the government will give enough money on it. Moreover the concern that they will give not enough is a little stronger than one that they will give not enough. It seems that there is lack of trust in the government among the respondents on the one side the desire to help the victims of the hurricane on the other side. This point of view is also supported by the fact that half the respondents expressed their concern about uncertainty if the very needy will get the required assistance. And only less than one tenth of people fears that this kind of help will add to the present money deficit.

Second, the researchers state that after the hurricane people did not change their opinion about their own financial state. While before the hurricane 38 per cent of the respondents agreed that there were division between “haves” and “have-nots” in the country, after the hurricane the number of ones accepting this point of view increased to 48 per cent. However, estimating their own financial state the respondents do not consider that it changed somehow after Katrina.

Quite natural seems the fact that a lot of people changed their opinion on the government’s priorities. More people began to lean to the idea that in current conditions domestic policy is much more important than foreign one. Though, it should be noted that the majority of the respondents had always been in favor of the domestic affairs of the country, even in time of international conflicts. The thing is that while before January, 2005 only 53 per cent of respondents were inclined to advocate the priority of domestic policy, after January, 2005 this number rose to 64 per cent.

Then, speaking of reducing the budget after the hurricane, less than a half of the respondents consider it a crucial issue. Interesting is the fact that this number did not changed greatly after Katrina (from 39 to 42 per cent). Explaining it, the researchers say that the consequences of the hurricane are still not so apparent to understand how it influenced the government budget. To make the results of the survey more specific, the sociologists speak separately of the opinions on this point of Democrats and Republicans and compare them. It appears that Democrats are more concerned about the necessity of reducing the national budget for the purpose of investing more money in the recovery after the hurricane.

In the next section of the survey the sociologists are studying the point of view of the public on the problem of saving money for recovery. The point is in what area the government should prune the budget. The priorities of the respondents here were given to the reduction of spending money on the war in Iraq and domestic spending (31 to 20 per cent). The researchers emphasized that after they changed the definition “cut Iraq spending” to “cut military/defense spending” the public opinion also “changed” (31 per cent for domestic spending to 28 per cent for military spending).

As for the opinion of the respondents on the economic situation in the country, the research showed that, on the whole, people began to consider it worse since May, 2005, though in should be noted that the results did not change dramatically. To add, according to the results of the polling, people become a little more optimistic about their financial future in comparison with September, 2005.

Finally, as far as the availability of job is concerned, 36 per cent of the respondents find it easy to find job. It is 6 per cent more than in May, 2005 which also tells about optimistic outlook of the respondents.

To conclude, the survey presented the information about the economic situation in the USA after the natural disaster in 2005, the opinions of people on possible solutions of the financial problems, possible ways of helping damaged regions and people’s expectations for the future.

In my opinion the survey like this was extremely important in October, 2005, when the hurricane Katrina caused great damage to the country. It is quite understandable that after this tragedy, the Americans felt confused, unaware of how the financial situation in the country will change in the near future. That is why this research was very helpful in understanding not only the current financial state of the country, but also the state of mind of the people who had to face the unexpected changes in the life of the country.

What is positive in the conducted survey is that various aspects of the problem are touched and viewed in detail, from the opinions on the necessity of allocation of money for recovery after the hurricane to the outlooks on the future perspectives. So, this approach allows the sociologists to embrace the problem in whole.

However there is an evident drawback in this attempt to comprehend all the sides of the problem at a time. It seems rather illogical when the researchers after the question if the respondents approve of money allocation to help the needy, ask about the division of people on “haves” and “have-nots”. And only to the end of the survey they ask how the government should save money to rebuild the damaged regions. Moreover, the researchers in their conclusions give facts that are missing in the table. For example, when they are talking about people’s ability to find job, they add that, according to the research, the employment situation among people having low income became better in comparison with May, 2005. However, there is no division between those with low and high income in the presented table, which may confuse the reader.

Again, the research is very detailed. So, if one after reading the main conclusions of the sociologists requires further information, he or she may turn to the tables below to get acquainted with sex, race, political belonging of those expressing particular opinions. However, it is not quite understandable why the sociologists took out the detailed information about the difference of opinion on reducing the national budget among different political parties into the main conclusions. Although this information appears to be very useful, it is not of crucial importance, if compared, for example, to the data concerning the financial future of the USA or the budget reduction itself.

What else should be mentioned is that because of the fact that some variants of answers are defined not clearly enough, there is some misunderstanding between the respondents. For example the researchers tried to formulate one and the same variant in too different ways. In the first case it was “cut Iraq spending”, in the second case – “cut military/defense spending”. Very significant is that in these different cases the results of the survey appeared to be different. After being asked “How to pay for disaster relief?” in the first case the majority of respondents chose “cut Iraq spending” in the second case gave preference to the other answer. Thus, unclearly formulated questions and answers may distort the real picture of the public opinion.

In my opinion, the sociologists chose the best method of research in this case – the qualitative one. It is extremely difficult to obtain statistically reliable data from the written sources soon after the disaster happened. Only a survey research can give here accurate data, as it comes directly from those who experienced the affairs themselves. The point is that this information should be carefully structured and placed in natural sequence.

To conclude, the given research is very important from the point of view of the information obtained, though, as far as I can judge, it would be better, if the data arranged in a little other way.

References

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. (2005, October). Katrina Relief Effort Raises Concern Over Excessive Spending, Waste. Retrieved March 11, 2009, from http://people-press.org/report/260/katrina-relief-effort-raises-concern-over-excessive-spending-waste