A new Rasmussen national telephone survey found that 72% of likely voters believe a free market economy performs better than an economy managed by the government. Only 14% favor the government management approach, and 14% are not sure.

A survey finding that most Americans favor free markets may not come as a surprise to many; however, the survey also revealed a startling difference for public sector workers among which nearly half favor government management of the economy. In other words only 14% of likely voters favor government management of the economy compared to 53% of public sector employees. Among private sector employees 75% favor free markets over government management of the economy.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on July 6-7, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.