Poll: Economy, jobs top priorities

The American public ranked economic issues as the top priorities for President Obama and Congress, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday. Eighty-six percent of respondents said strengthening the economy should be the top priority and 82 percent said improving the job situation was top issue, results indicated. None of the other 20 issues -- such as energy, the environment, Social Security, tax fairness and immigration -- that Pew tested in its annual survey was rated a top priority by more than 70 percent of Americans. Eighty-one percent said Obama should focus on domestic policy and 9 percent said he should concentrate on foreign policy, Pew said. In line with these percentages, defending against terrorism and strengthening the military were given less priority now than in the last decade, the center said. Results are based on nationwide telephone interviews of 1,502 adults conducted Jan. 11-16. The margin of error for the total sample is 3.5 percentage points.