Economical

In April survey CVVM was also interested in public evaluation of some social conditions in the Czech Republic. Our interviewers asked respondents how they evaluate this situation in following areas in our country: chance to get a flat, financial conditions to start a family, chances to have children, social security for the elderly, chance to work or to be employed, access to health care and access to education.

20 % of citizens regard taxation on high-income earners as high, 24 % say it is adequate and 43 % think it is low. Taxation on average-income earners is considered to be high by 47 % of respondents, adequate by 42 % and low by 2 % of citizens. Taxation on low-income earners was supposed to be high by two thirds of people (66 %), adequate by 23 % and low by 2 %. 71 % of respondents think that tax rate should be higher for high-income earners than for low-income earners.

Citizens of Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland evaluate present economic situation in their respective countries similarly. In all three cases the share of positive expressions was about quarter and the portion of critical evaluation amounted to three tenths. Quite different is the evaluation made by Hungarians when two thirds of them judge the present economic situation in Hungary as bad.

Czech citizens identified material living conditions of their households mainly as good and in comparison with other three countries where the similar survey was made Czech evaluation is the best.

Three fifths of Czech citizens (61 %) consider current inflation to be acceptable, on contrary roughly one fifth of people (21 %) share the opposite opinion. Present evaluation of inflation has been historically the most positive since 1993, when this survey started.

71 % of Czech citizens evaluate current economic level of the Czech Republic positively, when 3 % indicate it as very good and 68 % appraise it as rather good. On contrary 28 % of citizens judge economic level of the Czech Republic critically, when 26 % of these indicate it as rather bad and 2 % see it as very bad. On a ladder with other nine monitored states, Czech Republic took the third place ahead of all post-socialist countries, when the first and second position is occupied by Germany and Austria.

Over 80 % of respondents agreed with support of flexible working time or with support of part time job for parents with little children, with marriage loan and with tax cut for people with children. Support of prolongation of maternity holiday with 69 % of salary and common taxation, children benefit rise and running of public nursery at every primary school was expressed by 70 - 80 % of people.

Government expenditure on social policy in general and in partial areas is evaluated as rather low than high. The exception is unemployment benefit, where number of those who consider government expenditure as low (26 %) is little bit lower than number of those who suppose it to be high (29 %) or who find it adequate (33 %). According to 42 % of respondents the government takes care of social situation in appropriate way while 45 % of respondents find the Government's focus on social situation of citizens too low and 7 % of respondents suppose it to be exaggerated.

From all social conditions included in the survey people evaluate mostly positively only the accessibility of education (79 % positively, 14 % critically) and the health care (65 % : 32 %). All other monitored areas of social conditions - i.e. a chance to get a flat (21 % positively, 74 % critically), financial situation to start a family with children (23 % : 72 %), social security for the elderly (17 % : 71 %), life conditions for the handicapped (19 % : 61 %) and a chance to get a job (31 % : 65 %) - are evaluated largely critically.

5 % of citizens indicated their household to be "rather rich", whilst 28 % consider it to be "rather" (24 %) or "very" (4 %) poor. Almost two thirds of respondents (65 %) regard their household as neither rich nor poor. Problems with current budget of their household were stated by 58 % of respondents, on the other hand 36 % said they have no problems with budget of the household.

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In September CVVM survey within project Our Society 2006 focused on public attitudes of Czech citizens to employment. Almost all economically active citizens wish to have certain employment they would enjoy. For 84 % of respondents the certainty of employment is very important. More than 90 % of citizens suppose employment that brings them high income to be important. Most of working respondents (more than 80 %) feel that their job is important for society and they enjoy it.