Response bias in opinion polls and American social welfare

Response bias and notably response falsification undercut the usefulness of opinion polls in characterizing collective American attitudes toward social welfare. The attitudes polled in surveys such as the General Social Survey (GSS) and the National Election Studies (NSS) appear to be customarily sensitive, often evidencing very large amounts of response falsification that obscure the degree of consensus for America's bifurcated social welfare system. Response bias and falsification greatly affect self-reports of family income, drinking and drug abuse, sex behavior, voting, and a large number of other attitudes central to the provision of social welfare. The problems of response bias may be intractable and attention might profitably return to traditional scholarship that attends to actual collective choices, e.g., legislation, as still imperfect but more reliable estimates of the national will.