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This Monday, the Millbrook-based Dyson Foundation unveiled a $180,000 study probing public priorities in seven Hudson Valley counties. The medium was a thorough survey of public opinion conducted by Dr. Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. The study, which included an extensive telephone survey of 4,320 Mid-Hudson region residents, found that affordable healthcare was now the top concern of the region’s residents, pushing the search for well-paying jobs, the No. 1 concern when a similar survey was published five years ago, to second place.
So what worries now keep Hudson Valley residents up nights? Is it putting food on the table or the long hours they spend on the job? Among those people happily settled in the region, what ties them to the area? For those who feel overburdened, how much time remains before they pack up and try their luck in another area, another state?
Among the people who will want to know are politicians – particularly as election season approaches. And from Congressional representatives down to town supervisors, the answers are now available by clicking a link in their e-mail inboxes. The survey results, summarized and compiled, are now available online at www.ManyVoicesOneValley.org.
Patricia Myers, Poughkeepsie’s town supervisor, said she intends to view the responses. “I think it’s important to know how people are feeling and thinking,” she said. “It’s a useful tool for determining what people’s concerns are and what our goals should be, because that’s why we’re here.”
According to the survey, affordable healthcare is the top concern of area residents. Not coincidently, perhaps, many families said they have experienced inadequate coverage. At least one member of nearly one-quarter of households has experienced a gap in healthcare coverage within the past year, and 12 percent of households currently have at least one uninsured member. For them, lack of insurance is much more than something to complain about. Cost has caused one-third of the uninsured to skip a doctor’s appointment or go without needed medicine. While affordability and accessibility of healthcare are top concerns, quality is somewhat less so: the majority of residents feel positively about the quality of the care they do receive.
Them changes
Five years’ time has brought about shifts in residents’ priorities. As noted above, the Marist Institute conducted one previous poll in 2002 and compared results then and now.
With the healthcare issue having charged into the top spot from third-place in the 2002 survey, something had to give: keeping businesses in the area, the first-place concern in 2002, slipped to second — although its “mean” importance grade of 7.9 was exactly the same as before.
Reducing taxes, which as a priority of Mid-Hudson residents was mired in ninth place back in 2002, surged into third, thanks to an improvement in its mean score to 7.9. The increasing concern over high taxation edged out a number of high-ranking priorities of 2002, including improvements to educational quality, services for seniors and jobs creation.
And improving the quality of public schools, which was second on the minds of the region’s residents back in 2002, dropped into fourth place this time, with no change in its mean score of 7.8.
Many respondents today also worry that their voice will go unheeded: 60 percent are concerned that their local leaders don’t share their views on the issues. That sense of disconnect is up from 2002, when 50 percent felt decision makers were out-of-touch.
“The people who make the decisions aren’t always listening,” said Diana Gurieva, executive vice president of the Dyson Foundation, the philanthropic concern that commissioned the $180,000 survey.
Gurieva spoke of “frustration; dissatisfaction with the Hudson Valley. People are having a very hard time making ends meet,” she said.
Making ends meet challenges many: 64 percent say the Mid-Hudson region is not an affordable place to live. The cost of gasoline, followed by heat/electricity and property taxes, are cited as the top financial strains. Property taxes are a monthly financial burden to 58 percent of residents. Rent or mortgage and health insurance drain wallets further.
Ambitions to own
Nearly half (49 percent) of the people who currently rent a home dream of owning a home of their own, but many lack the means to make it happen: 57 percent of renters believe they are priced out of ownership. The solution for those people may be to relocate — 53 percent with ambitions to own intend to move out of the region if they cannot afford a home in the area.
Would-be homeowners are not the only ones leaving. Some residents are driven away by economic hardships: Among the 29 percent of residents who reported they intend to relocate, half cited economic reasons for leaving. But reasons also differ slightly by county. In Dutchess, the cost of living is the primary reason behind a plan to move (20 percent), followed by jobs and taxes (both 15 percent). In Ulster, taxes top the list of reasons to leave (20 percent) while jobs and cost of living come in second (both 15 percent).
A tool for public policymakers
Other notable highlights were that protecting open space continues to be a top priority, most residents are satisfied with the job the authorities are doing in protecting people from crime and 70 percent are dissatisfied with the amount of affordable housing.
These are the sorts of useful, hard-to-come-by data that are a real boon for anyone trying to improve the public weal. The survey medium allows regional leaders and ordinary folks alike the opportunity to measure changes in public preferences through time. That could be very important.
And the real value of this expensive survey is that it is the Cadillac (as the top of the line model used to be called) of its kind. It can be used as a tool to reliably discern, for instance, whether renters or owners are more concerned about housing or job security or health insurance. As such, it can serve a continuing role in debates over public policy issues.
That’s remarkable. It might even be revolutionary.
(Geddy Sveikauskas contributed to this story)
