The U.S. Faces Eroding Confidence in Critical Government Institutions

What We're Showing

The results of an ongoing Gallop multi-country opinion poll gauging confidence in societal institutions. Specifically, this dataset aggregates confidence in the military, the judicial system, the national government, and the integrity of the electoral system.

Diverging Confidence

While peers in the G7 has seen confidence hold steady (Britain) or rise (everyone else), the United States is a clear outlier. The share of Americans who have confidence in these institutions fell by 13 percentage points since 2006 – one of the biggest changes amongst the group. In fact, the U.S. moved from having the highest confidence in the G7 to having the lowest over that time period.

Britain was the only other G7 nation to not see an increase, but changes did occur in the underlaying score. For example, confidence in government dipped from 49% to 33%. Benedict Vigers, from Gallup, had the following to say, “Like America, the UK has seen a pretty steady decline in confidence in national government, but this more core belief in the foundation of the democratic system and in fair elections is still pretty strong.”