Asked to rate several groups on a 0-100 “thermometer” – where 0 is the coldest, most negative rating and 100 represents the warmest, most positive rating – Republicans and Democrats give very low ratings to the people in the opposing party. Democrats give Republicans a mean rating of 31 – far lower than the average ratings for five other groups on the thermometer, including military personnel and elected officials. Republicans give Democrats a mean rating of 29; only elected officials (30) and atheists (36) are nearly as low.

Read more: Partisanship and Political Animosity in 2016

pewinternet:

Workers turn to social media for a range of reasons while at work, with taking a mental break and connecting with friends and family being among the most common. While these new platforms can be tools for connection with colleagues and outside experts, they can also serve as distractions while on the job. 

Social Media and the Workplace

pewinternet:

Happy National Selfie Day! Millennials by far stand out as selfie takers, according to our 2014 data – over half say they have shared a selfie on social media. 

What was the last selfie you took?

More than half of Millennials have shared a ‘selfie’

Abortion is still a difficult, contentious and even unresolved issue for some religious groups. Here’s where major religious groups stand on abortion.

More older Americans are working, and working more, than they used to

More older Americans – those ages 65 and older – are working than at any time since the turn of the century, and today’s older workers are spending more time on the job than did their peers in previous years, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of employment data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the wake of prolonged economic stagnation, a massive influx of refugees, terrorist attacks and a strategic challenge posed by Russia, many Europeans are weary – and perhaps wary – of foreign entanglements, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Views of their respective countries’ place in the world vary widely, but few see the past decade as a time of growing national importance. And across the continent publics are divided: Many favor looking inward to focus on domestic issues, while others question whether commitments to allies should take precedence over national interests.

Yet Europeans have not completely turned their backs on the world. Although deeply critical of how the European Union has handled the refugee crisis, the economy and Russia, they acknowledge the Brussels-based institution’s rising international prominence and want it to take a more active role in world affairs. Involvement in the international economy is also widely supported and Europeans generally feel an obligation to help developing nations.

Europeans Face the World Divided

About six-in-ten Syrians are now displaced from their homes

Conflict in Syria has displaced millions of citizens from their homes since protests against the al-Assad government began more than five years ago. An estimated 12.5 million Syrians are now displaced, amounting to about six-in-ten of the country’s 2011 midyear population – and up from less than 1 million in 2011, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of global refugee data.

The displacement of Syrians is unprecedented in recent history for a single country, our analysis of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) data found. For example, conflicts in Afghanistan during the Soviet incursion in the 1980s resulted in about half of the country’s population being displaced within or outside its borders. Less than a fifth of Iraq’s population was displaced when violence rose in 2007 and 2008. And more than 2.5 million Rwandans, or less than half of its population, were displaced during the 1994 genocide.

Previous estimates since 2014 have found that about half of Syria’s pre-conflict population had been displaced. That share has risen to about 60% as more than a million additional Syrians crossed international borders into neighboring countries like Turkey or left for more distant destinations in Europe.

More than 57.6 million people, or 28.5% of estimated eligible voters, voted in the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries that all but wrapped up Tuesday – close to but not quite at the record participation level set in 2008.

For a while it looked like this year’s primaries, driven by high turnout on the Republican side, might eclipse the turnout record set in 2008, when 30.4% of voting-age citizens cast ballots. The GOP did indeed have the highest primary turnout since at least 1980, according to our analysis – 14.8%, compared with 11% in 2008 and 9.8% in 2012. But turnout fell off markedly after Donald Trump won the May 3 Indiana primary and his two main rivals dropped out of the race.

Turnout in the first 29 GOP primaries – up to and including Indiana – averaged 16.6%, according to our analysis. But turnout in the final nine contests, after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, averaged only 8.4%.

Turnout was high in the 2016 primary season, but just short of 2008 record

Latinos See Better Economic Times Ahead

Latinos have become considerably more upbeat about their personal finances and optimistic about their financial future since the Great Recession, according to newly released results from a national survey of Latino adults. The survey also shows that Latinos have pulled even with the general U.S. population in their views of their personal finances and continue to outpace them on optimism about the future.

Despite this growing confidence, federal government data show limited economic progress for Hispanics since the Great Recession. 

• The Hispanic unemployment rate has improved since the Great Recession but remains above its low of 5% in the fourth quarter of 2006. 
  
• Median household income for Hispanics has stagnated since the Great Recession. 
  
• The Hispanic poverty rate – 23.6% in 2014 – is less than a peak of 26.5% in 2010 but remains above pre-recession levels (as it does for all Americans).
  
• Hispanic households had the largest percentage decline in their net worth through 2009 of any major racial or ethnic group. Unlike white households, however, their net worth continued to fall after the recession.
  

Increase in living with parents driven by those ages 25-34, non-college grads

A recent Pew Research Center analysis of census data found that in 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, 18- to 34-year-olds in the U.S. were more likely to be living in their parents’ home than with a spouse or partner in their own household. A closer analysis of the data helps explain why: Adults in their late 20s and early 30s are living with their parents at record or near-record levels.

Despite the popular image of college-educated adults moving back into the family nest after graduation, young adults with at least a bachelor’s degree are the least likely to live with their parents (19% did in 2014). And the share of college grads doing so has risen less sharply than that of young adults with a high school education or less. Since 1960 (the overall low point for 18- to 34-year-olds living at home), the living-at-home share of college grads has grown by 74%, as opposed to a 103% increase for young adults with only a high school diploma and an 87% increase for those who did not finish high school.