Who Is Occupy Wall Street? New Study Shows Demographics Of New Movement

[Tx4obama]

Occupy Wall Street Demographic Survey Results Will Surprise You

We now know what they want, what social networks and online tools they use and who doesn’t like them. But just who are the Occupy Wall Street protesters?

Over a month since the demonstrations began in New York’s Zuccotti Park, two demographic surveys of the movement and its supporters are now available online, both of them containing surprising, perhaps even counter-intuitive findings about the makeup of the movement and its supporters.

SNIP

Rest of article and results here: http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-demographic-survey-results-will-surprise-you.php?ref=fpa

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. "Post-political". Yep, I like it. K&R!

[Bonobo]

2. The only surprising thing is that anyone would find those results surprising.

Let's take a look at what was discovered:


Politically independent
Among other striking findings, Codero-Guzmán discovered that 70 percent of the survey’s 1,619 respondents identified as politically independent, far-and-away the vast majority, compared to 27.3% Democrats and 2.4% self-identified Republicans.

“That finding surprised me based on what I had heard in previous conversations about the movement” said Codero-Guzmán in a telephone interview with TPM on Wednesday. “I wasn’t expecting many Republicans, but I was expecting more self-identified Democrats.

MY COMMENT: They are people who were once Democrats but who no longer feel represented by the Democratic Party. THAT is why they do not identify as Democrats any longer.

Age varies widely
64.2% of respondents were younger than 34 years of age, but one in three respondents was over 35 and one in five was 45 or older.

MY COMMENT: I am not surprised in the least by this. Are you? Is anyone? Why would you think that only young people are upset about economic injustices of the last 30 years?

Wealth varies widely
A full 15.4% of the sample reported earning annual household income between $50,000 and $74,999. Another 13% of the sample reported over $75,000 , and 2% said they made over $150,000 annually, putting them in the top 10 percent of all American earners, according to the Wall Street Journal’s calculator. That said, 47.5% of the sample said they earend less than $24,999 dollars a year and another quarter (24%) reported earning between $25,000 and $49,999 per year. A whopping 71.5% of the sample earns less than $50,000 per year.

MY COMMENT: Again, what is surprising about this and why does the author of this want to claim there is something surprising about this? Why the SLANT on the article?


Highly educated
92.1% of the sample reported “some college, a college degree, or a graduate degree.”

MY COMMENT: Not surprising in the least.

They have jobs
50.4% reported full-time employment, and “an additional 20.4% were employed part-time.”

MY COMMENT: so half have jobs and half do not. Is that surprising?

Overall, Rutkoff says, the survey indicates that “Zuccotti Park protesters are underemployed at twice the national rate, lukewarm to warm on Obama and broadly in favor of taxing the wealthy and encouraging a Tea Party-style populism on the left.”

FINAL COMMENT: Yes, that is correct --and that is what we already knew. There are no surprises except the claim that there are surprises.

[FirstLight]

3. thanks for sharing this..

and I agree about the 'no surprises' observation ;)

[Lil Missy]

6. "92.1% highly educated". Opposite of the tea baggers, I'd bet.

[Bonobo]

4. So which part surprised you, Tx4obama. And why? nt

[Tx4obama]

9. Huh?

Do you see any comments added by me to the OP article, I didn't say if I was surprised or not.
I guess your question should probably be directed to the 'author' of the article ;)
I posted the article (copy and paste) for it's 'data'/survey results for the folks that might want to read it.

[Bonobo]

10. Wonderful! So we all agree that it is NOT surprising, unlike...

what the author you chose to publish here said. Great! I love when there is total agreement!

[pnorman]

5. "Who Is Occupy Wall Street?" K & R!

n/t

[jowsybart]

7. "....a Tea Party-style populism on the left.” LOL...that'll be the day!

from the article: “Zuccotti Park protesters are underemployed at twice the national rate, lukewarm to warm on Obama and broadly in favor of taxing the wealthy and encouraging a Tea Party-style populism on the left.”


a tea party style populism on the Left??? Lol...that'll be the day! WHy? Because the so called Left in america seems more concerned with diluting true economics-oriented leftism (i.e., populist leftism) with social oriented leftism (non-populist leftism) that deals more with things like gay rights, affirmative action and immigrant rights. And I would bet those OWS protestors would agree with me.

I would love to see a poll of OWS protestors that asked them whether the democratic party ought to shift its focus from things like gay rights, affirmative action and immigrant rights and to things like taxing the rich, universal healthcare paid by taxation, and stopping mass immigration.

[GliderGuider]

8. They sound like they're very independent-minded. I wonder how can we fix that?

:sarcasm:

“We are a movement of people empowerment, a collective realization that we ourselves have the power to create change from the bottom-up, because we don’t need Wall Street and we don’t need politicians.”