Hello and happy 2021 from SurveyMonkey!

If you’re new here—welcome! We use this newsletter to send periodic updates from our Research and Strategic Partnerships team to keep you informed about all our latest data, from politics to business to Silicon Valley to the coronavirus. We also share insights from behind the scenes about how we work.

In this update, we’ll spotlight our latest polling data on the coronavirus relief package and share a little bit about our sampling methodology.

Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal receives widespread support

Two SurveyMonkey polls released in recent weeks reveal widespread support for President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which would provide money to individuals and businesses who have been affected by the pandemic.

Emily Cochrane and Jim Tankersley report in the New York Times:

“More than 7 in 10 Americans now back Mr. Biden’s aid package, according to new polling from the online research firm SurveyMonkey for The New York Times. That includes support from three-quarters of independent voters, 2 in 5 Republicans and nearly all Democrats. The overall support for the bill is even larger than the substantial majority of voters who said in January that they favored an end-of-year economic aid bill signed into law by President Donald J. Trump.”

(Read the full story.)

That significant level of support among Republicans is particularly important to President Biden, who has taken care to frame the bill as bipartisan.

Laura Wronski @laurawronski

72% approve overall, including 97% of Dems, 76% of inds, and 43% of Reps

Ben Casselman @bencasselman

Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic plan enjoys strong bipartisan support, and Republicans can’t seem to settle on a strategy to fight it. New from @ESCochrane & @jimtankersley, with data from @SurveyMonkey: https://t.co/M82pdZsIJd

These latest data are consistent with other polling on the stimulus package; a nearly identical 68% of people in a Quinnipiac University poll said they support the Biden administration’s stimulus bill. (Full results here.)

Along with this enthusiasm among the general public, the latest CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Confidence Survey indicates that Main Street has also gotten behind the proposed stimulus package. An easy majority of small business owners (63%) say they support the $1.9 trillion relief bill. Even among small business owners who are Republicans, nearly half (46%) support the huge stimulus package; six in 10 (60%) small business owners who consider themselves independents and virtually all small business owners who are Democrats (96%) support the proposal. (Read more here.)

Nearly a year into the pandemic, small business confidence is the lowest it has been in the four+ year history of the quarterly CNBC|SurveyMonkey survey. Barely more than half of small business owners (55%) now say they can survive for more than a year under current business conditions, down from 67% who said so last quarter.

In addition, data from this latest survey continue to show that small business owners of color have been hit the hardest by the pandemic.

Michelle Fox reports for CNBC:

“About one-third, or 37%, of Black small-business owners said they can survive more than a year under current conditions, versus 59% of White small-business owners and 55% of Hispanic small-business owners, according to the latest quarterly CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey.
Additionally, 15% said their business has been temporarily shuttered due to the pandemic and has not reopened yet. In comparison, 8% of White small-business owners reported the same.”

(Read the full story.)

The Biden administration is putting a renewed focus on helping small businesses in general, and those run by people of color in particular.

President Biden @POTUS

Small businesses are the backbone of our communities – and far too many are on the brink of closing their doors. Tune in as I announce additional steps we’re taking to support them.

President Biden @President_BidenSmall businesses are the backbone of our communities – and far too many are on the brink of closing their doors. Tune in as I announce additional steps we’re taking to support them.pscp.tv

Behind the numbers

How does SurveyMonkey conduct its opinion polling? Anytime you see a “SurveyMonkey poll” in the news, including the ones cited above, our team of researchers had a hand in designing, fielding, and analyzing the data.

When you think of polling, you might have a certain (outdated!) impression of how it works: someone working in a call center dials your landline telephone number, and you answer right as you’re sitting down to dinner. That’s not really how it works anymore.

SurveyMonkey conducts all of our polling online, using our own Market Research Solutions and relying on our team of in-house survey experts to craft unbiased survey questions, appropriately target the respondents we’re interested in reaching, and weight our results to be representative of the population of interest. You can read more about our methodology here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/survey-methodology/

If you’re a data-savvy researcher looking for a new career opportunity, come join our team! We’re hiring a Research Scientist to help with all our internal- and external-facing polling work.

That’s all for this update! Thanks for reading and following along with us.

Two SurveyMonkey polls show support for Bide…

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