Survey Suggests Pennsylvanians Back Free-Market Reforms, Believe State Economy Needs Improvement

A new survey released Thursday by the Commonwealth Foundation (CF), a Harrisburg-based think tank, suggests Pennsylvanians broadly support free-market reforms the institute urges policymakers to embrace. 

CF publicized its Better Pennsylvania 2023 Plan, a list of 23 such recommendations, in conjunction with the poll. Executive vice president Jennifer Stefano said the foundation plans to distribute the agenda to state lawmakers and candidates for public office. She believes the ideas’ implementation will “restore hope to our citizens across the commonwealth and set us on a better path that allows all Pennsylvanians to flourish.”

According to the new survey, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, current economic conditions (e.g., high inflation and stalled job growth) persuade many Pennsylvania residents that change is needed. And while CF often criticizes state policies, notably those advanced by liberal Democratic Governor Tom Wolf over the last eight years, Stefano voiced curiosity at how trenchantly residents characterized the state of their commonwealth.

“We were quite surprised by public attitudes about Pennsylvania and how things are going in our state,” she told reporters.

The poll of 600 registered Pennsylvania voters revealed that 68 percent of them considered their state as being on the “wrong track” in broad economic and quality-of-life terms. And 42 percent of respondents said they recalled either thinking about leaving the state (24 percent), knowing someone who thought about exiting it (15 percent) or knowing someone who has left (12 percent) because of state policies. 

Earlier this year, polling of voters in neighboring Democrat-run states New York and New Jersey found much lower rates of public dissatisfaction with those state’s governance: Forty-seven percent of New Yorkers considered their state as moving in the wrong direction and 52 percent of New Jersey voters did. A January survey of Republican-governed Florida, meanwhile, found a 50-percent plurality of that state’s voters believed important economic indicators were heading in the right direction…. (Excerpt from The Pennsylvania Daily Star)