MILLEDGEVILLE — The Georgia College Department of Government and Sociology has released the second edition of Georgia’s State of the State Poll, which takes the pulse of residents on key issues.

Conducted during February 2015, the polls’ results focus on concerns within the state — from the legalization of marijuana to the creation of charter schools and economic conditions.

“Key highlights from respondents include that Georgians are optimistic about the direction of the state,” said Dr. Costas Spirou, Georgia College professor and chair of the Department of Government and Sociology. “We also found for the second year in a row that jobs, education were the most important issues facing the state according to those polled.”

According to the 500 randomly selected adults interviewed, more than half think the state is moving in the right direction. Education was the top concern (21 percent) followed by jobs (20 percent). Transportation and taxes also emerged as important concerns this year.

Georgians are more optimistic than last year about the economy as they report slightly higher rates of satisfaction compared to last year. More than half of the residents polled said they were satisfied with economic development efforts with residents from the Middle and Southern parts of the state expressing the greatest dissatisfaction.

The poll also highlighted public’s trust in the different levels of government, where the federal and county levels were cited as the most trusted.

The majority of Georgians continue to be dissatisfied with public education and, like last year, they would be willing to invest more money to improve the system. Georgians also favor the creation of charter schools (55.5 percent) and support the Common Core Standards Initiative (53.4 percent).

Opposition to the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ObamaCare, increased from last year with more than half of those polled saying they oppose the law.

Georgians strongly favor legalizing medical marijuana with the strongest support in metro Atlanta and north Georgia. Nearly half oppose legalizing same-sex marriage in the state.

Other findings include:

• ​​Georgians favor (63 percent) legislation that would help rehabilitated offenders re-enter society by removing barriers to employment, housing and education.
• Georgians favor (46.5 percent) the Safe Carry Protection Act-guns everywhere— with a smaller (37.4 percentage) opposing.
• Seventy-three percent of Hispanics cite that they have been impacted by cuts in state programs or services, while overall more residents report they have not been affected by the cuts (64.4 percent).

“As the 2016 Presidential Election race is getting underway and this state is becoming a critical component of any strategy in the upcoming primaries, candidates and their teams must seriously consider Georgia in their pursuit of the party nomination. These findings contribute to many upcoming policy debates,” said Spirou.

The 2015 Georgia’s State of the State Poll was conducted by a random telephone survey between Feb. 9 and 16, 2015. The margin of error for the survey is +/-4.4 percent. All participants interviewed were 18 years of age or older.

“The purpose of Georgia’s State of the State Poll is to engage the citizenry and contribute to a statewide conversation about various public policy issues. In the process, our goal is to improve the socioeconomic well-being of the state’s residents,” said Spirou, who co-authored the report with Dr. Min Kim, Georgia College assistant professor of public administration.