{"id":50225,"date":"2012-05-17T09:51:02","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T14:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2012\/05\/17\/public-yawns-at-european-economic-woes\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:48:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:48:14","slug":"public-yawns-at-european-economic-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/2012\/05\/17\/public-yawns-at-european-economic-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Yawns at European Economic Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the G-8 leaders prepare to meet at Camp David on Friday, the dominant topic of conversation will be the European debt crisis. Yet it is a crisis that has attracted minimal interest or concern among the U.S. public, despite warnings from economists that Europe\u2019s problems may threaten this country\u2019s fragile recovery.<\/p>\n\n

Last week was typical: In the Pew Research Center\u2019s weekly News Interest Index<\/a>, just 17% said they were following news about economic problems in Europe very closely. Just 3% cited this as their top story of the week. By comparison, 40% tracked U.S. economic news very closely and 20% said they followed it more closely than any other story.<\/p>\n\n

A week earlier, nearly four times as many said the death of football player Junior Seau was their top story than cited Europe\u2019s economic problems (11% vs. 3%).<\/p>\n\n

In part, the public\u2019s lack of interest Europe\u2019s woes is part of a broader indifference to international news. Last year<\/a>, there were a number of breakthrough foreign stories, from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to the \u201cArab spring.\u201d Not this year. Aside from the deadly crash of a cruise ship off the coast of Italy in January, no international story has come close to <\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

topping the weekly news interest index.<\/p>\n\n

The public does not believe Europe\u2019s financial crisis presents much of a threat to the U.S. economy. Last December, Pew Research asked about the seriousness of several possible threats to the U.S. economy<\/a>. Fully 76% said the size of the national debt posed a major threat to U.S. economic well-being. Fewer than half (46%) said Europe\u2019s economic problems represented a major threat. In terms of foreign threats, far more viewed economic competition from China as a major concern than the European crisis.<\/p>\n\n

There were wide partisan differences over several possible economic threats, but not the Europe crisis. Only about half of Republicans and independents (49% each) said Europe\u2019s economic problems represented a major threat to U.S. well-being, as did 43% of Democrats.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the G-8 leaders prepare to meet at Camp David on Friday, the dominant topic of conversation will be the European debt crisis. Yet it is a crisis that has attracted minimal interest or concern among the U.S. public, despite warnings from economists that Europe\u2019s problems may threaten this country\u2019s fragile recovery. Last week was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[232,326,440],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[516,514],"research-teams":[520],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-50225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-conditions","category-news-media-trends","category-recessions-recoveries","formats-report","regions-countries-europe-russia","regions-countries-international","research-teams-politics"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":337,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/2012\/05\/17\/public-yawns-at-european-economic-woes\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"report_materials":"","report_pagination":{"current_post":null,"next_post":null,"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"Public Yawns at European Economic Woes","parent_id":50225},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Public Yawns at European Economic Woes","description":"As the G-8 leaders prepare to meet at Camp David on Friday, the dominant topic of conversation will be the European debt crisis. Yet it is a crisis that has…","og_title":"Public Yawns at European Economic Woes","og_description":"","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{"prc-image-alt-text":{"status":"incomplete","message":"1 image is missing alt text.","data":{"count":1}},"prc-about-this-research":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add an \"About this research\" details block.","data":null},"prc-paragraph-count":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 7 paragraphs.","data":{"count":7}},"prc-internal-link":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 4 internal links.","data":{"count":4}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112388,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50225\/revisions\/112388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"level_of_effort","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/level_of_effort?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"primary_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary_audience?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"information_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/information_type?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=50225"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=50225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}