Feb 27, 2020
Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute Press Conference – Press Materials

 Press Release on February 27, 2020

POP releases findings of Financial Budget instant poll

Special Announcements

1. The predecessor of Hong Kong Public Opinion Program (HKPOP) was The Public Opinion Programme at The University of Hong Kong (HKUPOP). “POP” in this release can refer to HKPOP or its predecessor HKUPOP.
2. The Budget surveys, including instant and follow-up polls, conducted by POP this year may be the last of its series, whether it will be continued next year or not will depend on public support.

Abstract

After Financial Secretary Paul Chan delivered his Budget Speech yesterday, POP conducted an instant survey on the same day and released some of the findings last night via our media sponsor Apple Daily. Apart from random landline and mobile numbers, this survey also included samples from our “Hong Kong People Representative Panel” (i.e. a panel comprising randomly recruited samples) within “HKPOP Panel”, interviewed by telephone or invited through email to complete an online survey. Our telephone survey began at 4pm till about 8pm, while our online survey started at 1:30pm and ended at 8:30pm yesterday. A total of 1,038 successful cases were collected, including 138 random landline samples, 135 random mobile samples, 183 panel telephone survey samples and 582 panel online survey samples. The raw data was weighted by population statistics and proportions of different sampling frames in order to ensure data representativeness.

Our survey shows that among those who had some knowledge of the fourth Budget Speech by Financial Secretary Paul Chan, 46% were satisfied, 27% were not, giving a net satisfaction rate of positive 19 percentage points. On a scale of 0-100, this Budget scored 54.1 marks. All popularity figures of the Budget have significantly improved compared to last year. As for Paul Chan’s own popularity as Financial Secretary, after the Budget Speech, his rating now stands at 43.5 marks, with net approval of negative 14 percentage points, also significantly improved from that in early February before the Budget Speech. Our instant survey describes people’s instant reaction towards the Budget, how people’s reaction will change after knowing more about the Budget will be revealed by our follow-up survey. The effective response rate of the survey excluding panel samples is 75.5%. The maximum sampling error of percentages is +/-3%, that of net values is +/-5% and that of ratings is +/-1.9 at 95% confidence level.

Contact Information

[1]     Telephone surveys by POP are all conducted by real interviewers.

[2]     This figure is the total sample size of the survey. Some questions may only involve a subsample, the size of which can be found in the tables below.

[3]     Before September 2017, “overall response rate” was used to report surveys’ contact information. Starting from September 2017, “effective response rate” was used. In July 2018, POP further revised the calculation of effective response rate. Thus, the response rates before and after the change cannot be directly compared.

[4]     All error figures in this release are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times with different random samples, we would expect 95 times having the population parameter within the respective error margins calculated. Because of sampling errors, when quoting percentages, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, whereas one decimal place can be used when quoting rating figures.

Latest Figures

People’s satisfaction figures with this year’s Budget are summarized below together with the previous findings:

[5]     The questions on the appraisal of Budget would exclude respondents who had not heard of / did not have any knowledge of the Budget.

[6]     Collapsed from a 5-point scale. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean.

[7]     The difference between the figure and the result from the previous survey has gone beyond the sampling error at 95% confidence level, meaning that the change is statistically significant prima facie. However, whether the difference is statistically significant is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful, and different weighting methods could have been applied in different surveys.

After excluding those respondents who said they did not have any knowledge of this year’s Budget, this year’s instant survey showed that 46% were satisfied with it, 27% were dissatisfied and 23% said “half-half”, giving a net satisfaction rate of positive 19 percentage points. The mean score is 3.2, which is close to “half-half” in general. Meanwhile, the average rating registered for the Budget was 54.1 marks. All popularity figures of the Budget have significantly improved compared to last year.

Figures on various Financial Secretaries’ popularity before and after their Budget Speeches since 2001 are summarized as follows: ^[8]

[8]     FS rating was introduced in our Budget instant poll in 2001, while approval rate was introduced in 2005. This table therefore starts from 2001.

[9]     The frequency of surveys on FS rating and approval rate was different before November 2005.

[10]  The difference between the figure and the result from the previous survey has gone beyond the sampling error at 95% confidence level, meaning that the change is statistically significant prima facie. However, whether the difference is statistically significant is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful, and different weighting methods could have been applied in different surveys.

The survey showed that the latest popularity rating of Financial Secretary Paul Chan after his Budget Speech was 43.5 marks, with approval and disapproval rates of 27% and 41% respectively, giving a net approval of negative 14 percentage points. All popularity figures have improved significantly compared to early February.

Data Analysis

Our latest Budget instant survey shows that among those who had some knowledge of the fourth Budget Speech by Financial Secretary Paul Chan, 46% were satisfied, 27% were not, giving a net satisfaction rate of positive 19 percentage points. On a scale of 0-100, this Budget scored 54.1 marks. All popularity figures of the Budget have significantly improved compared to last year. As for Paul Chan’s own popularity as Financial Secretary, after the Budget Speech, his rating now stands at 43.5 marks, with net approval of negative 14 percentage points, also significantly improved from that in early February before the Budget Speech. Our instant survey describes people’s instant reaction towards the Budget, how people’s reaction will change after knowing more about the Budget will be revealed by our follow-up survey.