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Though faith in major U.S. institutions – like the Supreme Court, newspapers, and public schools – has been at a historic low, American adults’ average confidence in fourteen institutions has risen (albeit slightly) for the first time since 2020. Since 1993, Gallup has polled U.S. adults on their confidence in the church/organized religion, the military, the U.S. Supreme Court, banks, public schools, newspapers, Congress, television news, organized labor, the presidency, the police, the medical system, the criminal justice system, and big business. This year, Gallup’s annual study found that an average of 28% of adults reported that they had a “great deal” of or “quite a lot” of confidence in major U.S. institutions – up slightly from 26% in 2023.
Previously, Seven Letter Insight reported on young people’s skepticism for U.S. institutions and organizations, with the U.S. military scoring the highest, and billionaires scoring the lowest.
Zooming out to U.S. adults, the U.S. military scored similarly high – 61% said they had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the military, second only to small businesses (68%). In contrast, Americans had the least faith in big business (16%), television news (12%), and Congress (the lowest, at just 9%).
Americans overall also had little confidence in the presidency – nearly half (46%) said they had very little faith in it, and just 26% said they had a great deal/quite a lot of confidence. However, when broken down by party, stark partisan differences explain the low confidence rating: while 61% of Democrats expressed at least a great deal of confidence in the presidency, just 7% of Republicans did – resulting in a 54 percentage point difference.
Both Republicans and Democrats are united in a few things, though – their faith in small business (just one percentage point difference) and the military (5 percentage point difference), and their lack of confidence in big business (4 percentage point difference) and Congress (6 percentage point difference).
Read the full Gallup results here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/647303/confidence-institutions-mostly-flat-police.aspx?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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