A Word About Polls On The Economy

As a student of marketing, I spent quite a bit of time learning about, and executing studies, or polls.  One thing I can tell  you about polls is, dig deeper.  For the number to be statistically significant, polls must be unbiased, random, and have a reasonable number of responses relative to the overall population you are applying the results to. For example, CNN can’t put  a few people outside a two or three office buildings in New York, and expect those responses to translate to the nation as a whole.  It’s not random; you’ve pre-selected your audience by location, region, etc…  And even if you get 1,000 responses, do you think that’s going to be representative of a nation of over 300,000,000 people?  Not even close.So while some polls can be quite useful, most of those you hear referred to on television are not what I would consider a reliable representative of the current situation.  Just keep these things in mind when polls are being discussed in the media.