LSI Survey: July 2021, Society Prioritizes 'Thin Superior' Economy Over Health Priority

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Research results from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) state that public perception of the economic situation has deteriorated in the last six months. In fact, community priorities are also torn between improving economic conditions or health.

LSI Executive Director Djayadi Hanan said that the level of public confidence in the president's ability to handle the pandemic tends to decline. According to him, various restrictions on community activities imposed by the government have an impact on economic conditions.

"Another interesting finding is that the perception of the economic situation over the past six months tends to worsen. Restrictions on people's mobility if not accompanied by sufficient assistance for those who are economically affected may face opposition from the community on the ground," he said, quoted on Monday, July 19.

The results of a survey conducted by LSI show that the majority of people currently prioritize economic issues over health.

In its survey, LSI asked the question 'Nowadays, in your opinion, should you prioritize health or economic issues'?

As a result, in July 2020, people who agreed to prioritize health were 45 percent. Meanwhile, those who prioritize economic problems are 47.9 percent.

Then, in September 2020, the number of people who agreed to prioritize health increased by 60.5 percent. Meanwhile, those who prioritized economic problems declined by 36.0 percent.

Meanwhile, in June 2021, people who agreed to prioritize health were 46.2 percent. This result was overtaken by the people who agreed to prioritize economic problems as much as 50.7 percent.

"People's support seems quite torn between choosing the government to prioritize economic issues and prioritize health issues. Compared to last September's survey, support for economic priorities is increasing now," he said.

Meanwhile, based on the results of the recap of the LSI survey, the majority of respondents think that COVID-19 threatens the community's economy, 95.8 percent. This number is greater than the threat to health of 92 percent.

"The majority, 70.9 percent, feel that it is quite possible for their lives to be worse because of the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak," he said.

Not only that, the majority of respondents 69 percent experienced a decrease in household income since the appeal to work and study from home. Of these, 74.9 percent of them considered the decline to be large compared to before COVID-19.

The majority of people ask for the restrictions on activities to be stopped

Then, the question continues as to whether the PSBB should be continued or stopped. As a result, in July 2020, 34.7 percent of respondents answered that they agreed that PSBB should be continued so that the spread of COVID-19 could be contained. Meanwhile, 60.6 percent answered that the PSBB was sufficient and could be stopped so that the economy would run.

In September 2020, 39 percent of respondents answered that they agreed that PSBB should be continued so that the spread of Covid-19 could be contained. Meanwhile, 54 percent answered that the PSBB was sufficient and could be stopped so that the economy would run.

"In June 2021, the majority of 57.1 percent felt that the PSBB was sufficient and could be stopped so that the economy would start immediately. However, 38.8 percent thought that PSBB should be continued so that the spread of COVID-19 can be contained," he said.

For your information, this survey uses telephone contacts to respondents with a sample of 1,200 respondents. The survey was randomly selected from a random sample set of direct face-to-face surveys conducted by LSI from March 2018 to June 2021.

The survey was conducted with the assumption of a simple random sampling method, a sample size of 1,200 respondents had an error tolerance or margin of error (MoE) of approximately 2.88 percent at a 95 percent confidence level. The sample comes from all provinces which are proportionally distributed.