The January edition of the PPIC Statewide Survey is always a popular one—especially in an election year. It gauges Californians’ reaction to the governor’s annual budget proposal and their sense of the issues that will be most important in 2014. Media coverage and audience comments at the lunchtime briefing focused particularly on the governor’s high approval ratings and his debt reduction proposals. Findings on attitudes toward the public pension situation and health care reform also generated considerable interest.
Sonja Petek, PPIC research associate and project manager for the survey, talked about these and other key findings—from Californians’ views on how the state should use the budget surplus to opinions about President Obama, Congress, and immigration policy.