Founded on bedrock principles of democracy, natural rights and freedom, America is uniquely shaped by its institutions. They provide stability, innovation, economic dynamism and global influence.
But with populist uprisings on the right and left taking aim at established power centers, America’s institutions have lost public confidence to a dangerous degree.
A poll from the Partnership for Public Service found that trust in government has declined from a low 35% in 2022 to a dismal 23% in 2024. Only 15% of those polled believe government is transparent (down six points) and a whopping 66% think it’s incompetent (up 10 points). Shockingly, only 29% said democracy is working and 68% said it’s not.
Public confidence has fallen during both Democratic and Republican administrations. The latest Pew Research survey found, for example, that only 17% of Americans now say they trust government in Washington, down from 77% in 1964. That’s not just a drop, it’s a collapse.
The institution in the worst shape, according to the Economist/YouGov survey, is Congress. Just 10% of Americans express high levels of confidence in it. What does this say about the 9 out of 10 citizens who feel otherwise?
Ron Faucheux
Among the three branches of national government, the presidency rates 30% and the U.S. Supreme Court 24% — both low, but better than Congress.
These results should set off alarm bells. Yet Americans have grown so accustomed to polls showing low levels of trust in government that bad numbers are no longer a jolt.
But tumbling confidence is not limited to primarily political institutions. The Economist/YouGov poll tests institutions in multiple sectors. The military is the only one that draws a clear majority of Americans (54%) expressing high confidence in it.
Republicans think much better of the military than do Democrats; Whites think better of it than do Blacks and Hispanics. There is a wide generational divide: U.S. adults 45 and older are far more likely than those under 45 to have strong confidence in the military.
Coming in second in confidence rankings is small business. It does best among men, Republicans, seniors and Whites. While small business ranks well compared to other institutions, it still wins this trust from only 50% of Americans surveyed.
Second to last on the list of institutions is big business, with only 14% expressing high confidence in it.
As you can see, size matters. In the public mind, small business is associated with local mom-and-pop shops struggling to stay afloat. Big business conjures images of rich, remote corporations and their lavishly paid executives. This distinction goes to the heart of populist unrest; it explains why voters, by a 57% to 25% margin, think the federal government should “try to reduce the gap in wealth between the richest and poorest Americans.”
Notably, banks (32%) and organized labor (26%) rank above big business and below small business.
Of all institutions assessed, police rank third at 38%. But group divides are substantial: 55% of Republicans and 31% of Democrats have high levels of confidence in police — as do 44% of Whites, 29% of Hispanics and 19% of Blacks.
Only 21% of U.S. adults have high confidence in the criminal justice system — substantially less than in police. Interestingly, a tad more Hispanics (24%) than Blacks (21%) or Whites (19%) have confidence in the entire system.
Next is the medical system, at 35%. Democrats have much more confidence in it than do Republicans.
Public schools follow at 32%; Blacks, more than Hispanics and Whites, have high confidence in them. Democrats also have more confidence than Republicans in public schools.
The church, or organized religion, scores 28%, and draws its highest levels of trust from a striking coalition — Republicans, Blacks and 18 to 29-year-olds.
How about the media? Newspapers do better (23%) than television news (17%), but both measure low. Higher-income Americans have the most confidence in newspapers, while lower-income earners have the most confidence in television news.
“We are at a punctuation point in human history,” wrote business and technology guru Don Tapscott, arguing that our institutions have “essentially run out of gas.” Most Americans would probably agree with this sentiment — and that, in itself, is a threat to the foundation of our democracy.