Economical

Only 29% of respondents think that the government cares for the social situation of their people in an adequate way, whilst two thirds (65%) of respondents think that it is insufficient, contrary to 4% who perceive it as excessive. Views on social care provided by the government to families with young children are even less favourable when only less than a quarter of respondents (24%) marked it as adequate, 71% respondents evaluated it as insufficient and 2% think it is excessive.

The latest census of the CPOR shows that more than a half of economically active Czech citizens are satisfied with their jobs. Another two fifths of respondents state that they are half satisfied and half unsatisfied. Job dissatisfaction was expressed only by 6% of respondents. Satisfaction with one’s job differs between those who are employees and those who are entrepreneurs managing small, medium or large enterprises; three quarters of entrepreneurs are satisfied with their jobs compared to only a half of those who are employees.

In February 2004, approximately 29% of respondents considered the standard of living of their household as being good. 48% described it as neither good nor bad, and 22% characterised it as bad. 5% of inhabitants consider their household to be rich, 28% consider it to be relatively poor or even very poor and two thirds consider it neither rich nor poor. Difficulties when managing the current income of their family were stated by 59% of respondents, 37% of respondents stated that they coped with the household budget more or less easily.

The standard of the Czech economy is evaluated as being positive by 45% of Czechs, 54%, on the other hand, are rather critical about it. As far as the present economic situation is concerned, the Czech general public is relatively concerned about it. Only 6% of respondents consider the current situation to be good, whilst 57% think that it is bad and 35% describe it as being neither good nor bad.

Some measures aimed at the elimination of tax evasion or other forms of economic crime such as alcohol stamps (71%) and the ban on the sale of alcohol and cigarettes in market places (68%), property assessment (59%) and the ban on payments in cash from a particular amount and higher (51%) and the introduction of cash registers (58%) enjoy a relatively strong or strongly prevailing support. As far as the changes in the tax rates are concerned, the general public would not object if the duty on cigarettes (66% for) or alcohol (63% for) were to be increased.

The January census of the CPOR surveyed the satisfaction of the public with the approved state budget. Questions were aimed both at the satisfaction with the fact that the Czech Republic has an approved state budget for 2004 and also at the formulation of the budget. The survey showed that the general public’s attitude to the fact that the budget had been approved was relatively positive. Only 11% of Czechs considered this fact as being bad, contrary to 42% who thought it was good.

As respondents stated, 4% of households purchased a new flat last year, 8% bought a new car, 29% went on a holiday abroad and 46% bought new furnishings. 3% of households plan to buy a new flat in 2004, 4% want to buy a new car, 31% plan to buy a holiday abroad and 35% are already planning to purchase new furnishings. The survey further showed that 38% of respondents stated that they could not put money aside towards monthly savings and 32% evaluated their monthly savings to be as little as only up to a thousand Czech Crowns.

In our November survey we asked several questions concerning unemployment; 7 out of 10 respondents indicated that the current level of unemployment in our country was too high, one quarter of Czechs believe that it is adequate and only 1% of our inhabitants consider it to be too low. One quarter of Czech citizens think that the unemployed in our country cannot find any work. A half of respondents think that the unemployed cannot find suitable work and the opinion of the remaining quarter of respondents was that the unemployed were simply not interested in finding work.

In the October census carried out by the Centre for Public Opinion Research respondents expressed the level of their support for individual groups. The largest share of support was allocated to small private entrepreneurs (electricians, heating engineers, seamstresses, etc), followed by owners of mall shops and doctors. A mostly negative response was detected towards senior politicians, foreign owners of companies and senior officials and civil servants.

The view of the Czech general public on entrepreneurs is clearly differentiated depending on whether it is owners of small, medium or large enterprise that are in question. Generally it can be said that people appreciate owners of small and medium enterprise much more than large companies. People usually reckon that both groups of entrepreneurs “have the courage to take risks and to explore unknown fields”, they perceive them as “enterprising, clever people with good ideas” and they think that “they work many hours per day, at the expense of the time that could be spend with the family or just on themselves”, the majority of the general public however think that it is a typical feature for large-scale entrepreneurs to search for loopholes in the law, to jointly prevent price reductions, to be closely connected to current politicians, to be recruited from the previous nomenclature, to be ruthless in destroying their competitors, and to acquired their property in a fraudulent way.