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Summary of AARP Survey of Floridians Age 50+: Opinions on Select State Legislative Issues

by Jennifer H. Sauer, AARP Research & Strategic Analysis, AARP Research, February 2013; updated March 2013

This and Related Reports

In their continued efforts to be an advocate and resource for all Floridians, and in particular those ages 50 and older, AARP Florida commissioned this survey to gauge the opinions of residents age 50 and older about various state legislative issues such as long-term care, safe driving, utility costs, taxes, and other relevant topics such as retirement, financial preparedness and the importance of certain community features.

Key findings include:

  • Over one‐quarter of Floridians age 50 and older say they or a family member has received some type of long‐term care in the past 5 years. Additionally, when asked to consider the prospect of receiving long‐term care in the next 5 years, nearly half say it is very or somewhat likely that they or someone in their family will, and a similar proportion say it is not very or not at all likely.
  • After considering two reasons to support and two reasons to oppose a law up for reconsideration in Florida to allow advance nuclear cost recovery (requiring utility customers to pay up‐front and increased rates for the planning and construction of new or expanded nuclear power plants), Floridians age 50 and older are clearly opposed to it.
  • More Floridians age 50 and older support the state requiring online retailers to collect the same 6 percent sales tax from consumers that other local in‐state retail merchants must collect. In fact, just over half support the proposal to enforce the collection of the tax with about one‐third of them strongly supporting it.
  • An overwhelming majority of Floridians age 50 and older strongly support the state implementing a law against texting from a cell phone while driving a car, truck or other motor vehicle. Just 5 percent say they would oppose such a law.

This Random Digit Dial phone survey was conducted by Precision Opinion between December 15 and December 20, 2012 and yielded 880 completed interviews. The final sample was weighted by age and gender for adults age 50 and older residing in Florida. For more information, contact Jennifer Sauer at 202-434-6207.