Jewish Economics Survey Notes II

Firstly, an important announcement. If you filled out the survey, when you hit submit, you should have been automatically taken to a Thank You screen. If you were not taken to this screen, then your answers were unfortunately, and very frustratingly, not submitted.

The bad news is that this happened to at least one person.

The good news is that I know why it didn't submit, and how to easily avoid the problem for anyone taking the survey. It didn't submit because a required question was left blank or while filling out an "other" box, the radio button (dot or circle to most of you) next to it wasn't clicked. This is a slightly annoying Google glitch; it doesn't automatically dot the Other radio button even if a person is filling out the Other box.

On the other hand, Google has a very nice feature in that if it does not go through, it takes you back to the beginning of the survey, but with all your answers filled in. You can quickly scroll down and any questions it wants you to fill in are highlighted in a faint red box. It takes about 2 seconds to correct any such questions and re-submit.

So, when filling out the survey, make sure to fill every required question in. Then, hit submit. You should be taken to a short Thank You screen, and that way you will know that is has been submitted. I hope nobody else had this problem; if you didn't see a Thank You screen, then if you don't mind quickly filling it out again that would be amazing, and I'm sorry for the difficulty.

On to the survey itself...

The response so far has been fantastic, and the feedback quite helpful. The spread and a few interesting tidbits so far that are more measurable:

• Israel, UK, Canada, 19 US states, 37 cities, and 50 neighborhoods (plus a handful who wrote "New York", not specifying what area).
• While most of the respondents have been on the younger side, over 15% of the responses have been from people 40 and above.
• Singles make up 15% of the respondents as well, and perhaps unsurprisingly, have little to no debt except perhaps minimal student loan debt; were more likely to have savings; all gave at least some charity; and all either had no car or owned their car outright.
  
• 52% of respondents own their houses or apartments.
  
• 44% do not have life insurance. About 2/3 of those are married, and about 1/3 of those have kids.
• 3% do not have health insurance.
  

Please pass the survey along to friends, family, neighbors, shuls, etc. If anyone has a way or person to contact to help get it placed on major Orthodox Jewish websites and media to further its spread, that would be amazing as well. My early estimate is that 2,000 responses would be needed to be able to seriously rely on the data, though I certainly wouldn't mind getting more than that. Thanks so much to all who have taken it and passed it along.

On a totally separate note, my mother just informed me that our old neighbor, Lipman Rabinowitz, has passed away. He was a really sweet, quieter man who I remember thinking growing up was incredibly classy. I always thought he was the type of man that should be painted sitting in a chair holding a pipe, if that makes sense. Baruch Dayan Emes.