Nurses Are the Most Trusted People in America

According to a new survey from researchers at Gallup:

In 2014, Americans say nurses have the highest honesty and ethical standards. Members of Congress and car salespeople were given the worst ratings among the 11 professions included in this year’s poll. Eighty percent of Americans say nurses have “very high” or “high” standards of honesty and ethics, compared with a 7% rating for members of Congress and 8% for car salespeople.

Not much is written or shown in the national media about car salesmen. One the other hand, congressmen are in the news every day. The problem, therefore, with car salesmen is probably more likely to be based on direct experience. If so, the auto industry ought to take heed and do a better job of improving the quality of its dealers.

The lever of trust toward all professions has dropped over the past year. Perhaps Americans are less likely to show their trust in people at all, compared to not long ago. Gallup researchers point out:

Since 2013, all professions either dropped or stayed the same in the percentage of Americans who said they have high honesty and ethics. The only profession to show a small increase was lawyers, and this rise was small (one percentage point) and within the margin of error. The largest drops were among police officers, pharmacists and business executives. But medical doctors, bankers and advertising practitioners also saw drops.

The results are not terribly shocking. Everything from gridlock in Congress to scandals about some members should erode public trust. It is a wonder anyone wants to be elected to a position in the House or Senate at all.

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Methodology: Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 8 to 11, 2014, with a random sample of 805 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.