Few Americans Trust the Federal Government

Perversely, distrust may encourage the government to grow bigger and more intrusive.

It will likely come as no surprise to readers that the federal government continues to enjoy rock-bottom trust among Americans. Charitable organizations are trusted by a majority of people, and state and local governments, as well as businesses, get thumbs-up from a fair number, but the years-long downward slide in trust in the federal government to act in society's best interest proceeds apace. That's grounds for knowing chuckles all around, but also for concern. That's because, perversely, there's evidence that low trust leads to bigger government.

Decades of Declining Trust

"Just under a third of U.S. adults (31%) say they have 'a lot' or 'some' trust in the federal government to act in society's best interest," Gallup reports this week of a survey conducted with Bentley University. "This figure is substantially lower than those who say the same about charitable organizations (80%), state and local governments (50%) and businesses (43%)."

Interestingly, distrust in the federal government is one of the few areas on which Democrats, independents, and Republicans agree, with similar shares of each expressing disdain for that institution. Majorities of Democrats trust state and local governments, with fewer than half expressing the same confidence in business; Republicans reverse that situation. Fewer than half of independents trust either. Large majorities of all three groups trust charities and advocacy organizations.

Trust in government has been on a downward slide for decades. Gallup puts "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust in the federal government to handle domestic problems at 70 percent in 1972, the earliest year recorded. That slipped to 58 percent in 2000, 46 percent in 2010, and 37 percent last year.

Similar polling by Pew Research found 77 percent of Americans trusting the federal government "to do what is right just about always/most of the time" in 1964, at 35 percent in 1990, enjoying a 9/11-era spike to 54 percent in 2001, but down to 21 percent in 2010 and a nearly identical 22 percent last year.

Powerful, Ineffective Government vs. Competent, Ethical Business

The recent Gallup survey also found "the federal government is viewed as having the most power to positively impact people's lives, yet it is perceived as the least effective at doing so." That may be nothing more than acknowledgment that the behemoth in D.C. is an 800-pound gorilla. Sixty percent of respondents say state and local governments have such power, and 62 percent say they're effective.

By contrast, only 25 percent believe charitable organizations have such power, and 35 percent say the same about businesses, but they are viewed as far better at making a positive impact. Eighty percent see charities as effective at making a positive impact and 60 percent say the same of businesses.

This echoes findings by the Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveys people across the world every year. The 2025 report for the United States found widespread erosion in trust in American institutions. Among government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business and media, only business is "seen as both competent and ethical." Government and media are viewed as both incompetent and unethical, while NGOs are seen as ethical, but incompetent.

That's not to say that Edelman found a lot of love for business. Its survey found high levels of grievances against government, business, and the rich and that "those with a high sense of grievance distrust all four institutions (business, government, media, and NGOs)."

Distrust Encourages 'Hostile Activism' and a Bigger State

Worse, this sense of grievance and distrust drives an embrace of radical schemes for changing things. Edelman found that "6 in 10 U.S. young adults see hostile activism as a viable means to drive change." Specifically, hostile activism is defined as attacking people online, intentionally spreading disinformation, threatening or committing violence, and damaging public or private property. While the survey doesn't further break out numbers by age bracket, support for violence is lowest among the categories for the general population, but not by a lot: 20 percent as compared to 27 percent for attacking people online, 25 percent for spreading disinformation, and 23 percent for damaging property.

Perhaps that embrace of hostile measures helps explain one of the perversities that low-trust societies suffer as compared to those with greater trust in people and institutions: There's evidence that low-trust societies are more prone to increasing the size, reach, and centralization of government.

In a 2015 Cato Journal article, John Garen of the University of Kentucky and J.R. Clark of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga asked, "the simultaneous growth in government and deterioration in trust in government presents something of a paradox: How does a mistrusted institution grow and become so large?"

We already know that lower levels of trust correlate with higher levels of crime and corruption. They suspect that declining trust simultaneously results from and encourages rent seeking (manipulating politics and government institutions to benefit oneself). They believe there's a "feedback mechanism that generates greater rent seeking as the degree of mistrustfulness grows; essentially, the returns to rent seeking are relatively higher in a mistrustful environment."

Misusing government power for your own ends could be seen as an act of "hostile activism" against perceived enemies. That might help create a cynical environment in which others feel free to do the same. Or others might seek a larger state with more rules to discourage such activity, but more government means a larger institution with greater power to manipulate and greater gains to be had from rent seeking relative to productive economic activity.

No Easy Fixes

How do you fix that feedback mechanism and restore some balance?

Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University suggests that government employees should be paid enough to discourage corruption "and that may only be possible if the overall size of the state is trimmed. Better to have a leaner state that delivers than a bloated state that preys on the public."

But U.S. government employees aren't exactly underpaid as it is. And increasing compensation without making government employment an even more attractive target for personal enrichment is a daunting challenge. Add to that the fact that government isn't really worthy of our confidence and there's no clear place to start.

Once people become disgusted with the system and accustomed to manipulating it to benefit themselves and hurt their enemies, who can you trust to set aside their grievances and end the downward slide?