The Most and Least Trusted Institutions in America

A survey from public relations firm Edelman concluded that business is, globally, the most trusted institution in society. However, this Gallup poll suggests small businesses are carrying most of the weight of this trustworthiness while big businesses are among the least trusted institutions in the United States. Only small businesses and the military have a high-confidence level above 70% in this survey.

Different surveys suggest a majority of Americans consider the U.S. military one of the most trustworthy institutions in the country. Last year, an online poll of more than 1,000 Americans by SafeHome.org, found that 70% of respondents trust U.S. soldiers more than judges and police. A poll of more than 2,500 people by the Reagan Institute earlier this year found 56% of Americans have a “great deal of trust and confidence” in the U.S. military.

Many Americans may not trust the for-profit health insurance system through which most get access to medical care, but Gallup suggests a slight majority of adults consider the medical system itself to be trustworthy. A Pew Research Center survey of more than 4,000 adults in January 2019 found that 74% of respondents had a “mostly positive” overall view of medical doctors.

Trust in law enforcement officers has one of the widest racial disparities in this Gallup poll, with 56% of non-Hispanic whites putting “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in police officers compared to just 19 percent for non-Hispanic blacks. Whites placed police in 3rd place among 16 institutions, while blacks ranked them in 13th place.

Religious institutions receive fairly high trustworthiness in this Gallup ranking, but there’s been a downward trend over the decades. In 1975, Gallup found that 68% of polled Americans had “great deal” or “a lot” of confidence in organized religion. That confidence fell below the majority level for the first time in 2002.

Among the 16 institutions included in this survey, public schools received slightly above average levels of “a great deal” or “a lot “of trustworthiness. A survey by Education Week of more than 2,000 parents of K-12 public and private school students found that half of respondents put “somewhat high to high” trust in a school’s ability to safeguard students from the Covid-19 virus, while 30% had “low to nonexistent” trust.

Trust in the U.S. Supreme Court tends to be issues-based, and as the highest court in the land enters a new era with an expanded conservative majority, trust in the court may line up along ideological lines. Nevertheless, a 40% trustworthiness rating in this Gallup poll, along with a Reuters/Ipsos poll showing strong support for term limits, suggests the Supreme Court is viewed with a tepid level of trustworthiness by the general public.

Along with police, the presidency has one of the widest spreads between whites and blacks. This Gallup survey found that non-Hispanic whites trust the president more than religious institutions while only 13% of non-Hispanic blacks place a high degree of trust in the White House. A USA Today/Suffolk University survey in April 2020 found that 30% of respondents found President Donald Trump trustworthy, but that figure rose to 78% among respondents who said Fox News was their top news source.

Trustworthiness of banks sits in the middle in the Gallup survey. The 16 institutions named in the poll found that only 38% of respondents assign a great deal of trust on average, which puts banks in the statistical middle of this survey. Non-Hispanic blacks trust banks even less, which should be no surprise considering a legacy of racist practices in the financial system, such as redlining. A separate Gallup survey from 2016 found less than 30% of Americans put a lot of trust in banks, up from a series low of 22% amid the 2009 financial collapse.

Big Tech has caught heat in recent years for alleged anti-competitive strategies and surveillance-capitalism business models, and it now faces the prospect of an emboldened antitrust effort from both the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission and Republican politicians who believe social media companies censor conservative views. While the survey found more trust of big tech companies by non-Hispanic blacks, less than a third of both whites and blacks place a lot of trust in this industry.

Union membership continues to decline, hovering around one in 10 U.S. workers. The figure falls into single digits if you exclude public-sector unions. The explanation for why union power in the U.S. has plummeted generally falls along ideological lines in the ongoing struggle between the rights of labor and the freedom of capital. This Gallup survey suggests organized labor institutions need to do much more to build public trust.

Amid an online glut of click-baiting, misleading headlines, reductive hot takes, opinion pieces, and accusations of bias coming from all directions, it’s no surprise the news media isn’t considered trustworthy by many people. Only about a fourth of respondents to this Gallup survey put a lot of trust in newspapers — though TV news networks (see below) are trusted even less.

While non-Hispanic whites place much more trust in police officers than non-Hispanic blacks in this survey, the racial gap is much narrower between the races when it comes to trustworthiness of the overall criminal justice system. Black Americans put far less trust in the system compared to whites, but only 24% of whites put a lot of trust in the justice system compared to 48% who put a lot of trust in police.

In May, the financial press heralded business as the most trusted institution in society, based on a global survey by public relations firm Edelman. However, Gallup suggests that there’s a big difference between the trustworthiness of small business compared with large ones. Your neighborhood grocery store might be trusted, but publicly traded global corporations? It’s not even close.

Newspapers might be facing trust issues, but TV news is considered even less trustworthy, according to this Gallup poll. TV news networks is one of the three institutions in this survey, along with big business and Congress, that garner less than a 20% high-confidence rating. A 2019 survey of more than 2,000 adults by Morning Consult and The Hollywood Reporter, only network news (CBS, NBC and ABC) was considered credible by at least 60% of respondents.

Trust in Congress tends to rise and fall depending on one thing above all else: the perception of gridlock. When Congress is viewed as helping average people, it’s viewed more favorably. When Congress passed the $900 billion Covid-19 pandemic relief package in December, its public approval shot up. But such bursts of approval are short lived, and according to this Gallup survey, federal lawmakers are the least trusted group of these 16 institutions.