(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 [1]
['Peter Bell']
Date: 2024-06-24
Public trust in the federal government, which has been low for decades, has increased modestly since 2023 . As of May 2024, 22% of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (21%). Last year, 16% said they trusted the government just about always or most of the time, which was among the lowest measures in nearly seven decades of polling.
% who say they trust the government to do what is right just about always/most of the time
% who say they trust the government to do what is right just about always/most of the time
When the National Election Study began asking about trust in government in 1958, about three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time.
Trust in government began eroding during the 1960s, amid the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the decline continued in the 1970s with the Watergate scandal and worsening economic struggles.
Confidence in government recovered in the mid-1980s before falling again in the mid-’90s. But as the economy grew in the late 1990s, so too did trust in government. Public trust reached a three-decade high shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks but declined quickly after. Since 2007, the shares saying they can trust the government always or most of the time have not been higher than 30%.
Today, 35% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they trust the federal government just about always or most of the time, compared with 11% of Republicans and Republican leaners.
Democrats report slightly more trust in the federal government today than a year ago. Republicans’ views have been relatively unchanged over this period.
Since the 1970s, trust in government has been consistently higher among members of the party that controls the White House than among the opposition party.
Republicans have often been more reactive than Democrats to changes in political leadership, with Republicans expressing much lower levels of trust during Democratic presidencies. Democrats’ attitudes have tended to be somewhat more consistent, regardless of which party controls the White House.
However, Republican and Democratic shifts in attitudes from the end of Donald Trump’s presidency to the start of Joe Biden’s were roughly the same magnitude.
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[1] Url:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/
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