Politics

Visualizing the Decline of Confidence in American Institutions

Published

5 years ago

October 1, 2019

Iman Ghosh

Every day, the public relies on a number of major institutions for services and safety. From banks and governments, to media and the military—these institutions play an important role in shaping life as we know it.

Yet, today’s interactive data visualization from Overflow Data shows that America’s confidence in institutions has drastically waned. The data relies on the General Social Survey (GSS) to provide a 40-year overview of how sentiment has changed with respect to 13 different institutions.

Select an institution from the drop-down menu below to see how confidence has changed over time

The Erosion of Confidence

Overall, confidence in most institutions has eroded. Americans find it especially hard to trust their government: the “great deal of confidence” metrics for Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive Branch were low to begin with, and have declined further since 1975.

That said, the biggest overall drop belongs to the press, which saw 50% of surveyed Americans saying they have “hardly any confidence” in it in 2016. This is nearly a three-fold increase from 1975, when that number was just 19%. Of course, with the rise of fake news in more recent years, the erosion of confidence in media doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Here’s a look at the two extremes of sentiment regarding the studied institutions, showing how the opposite measures of “hardly any confidence” and a “great deal of confidence” have changed since 1975:

Institution	Confidence level	1975	2016	Change
🏦 Banks & Financial Institutions	Hardly any	10.9%	31.2%	+20.3 p.p.
	Great deal	32.3%	14.1%	-18.2 p.p.
🗳️ Congress	Hardly any	26.2%	52.6%	+26.4 p.p.
	Great deal	13.6%	5.9%	-7.7 p.p.
🏫 Education	Hardly any	13.0%	17.5%	+4.5 p.p.
	Great deal	31.5%	25.6%	-5.9 p.p.
🏛️ Executive Branch	Hardly any	29.7%	42.4%	+12.7 p.p.
	Great deal	13.4%	12.8%	-0.6 p.p.
🏬 Major Companies	Hardly any	22.9%	17.3%	-5.6 p.p.
	Great deal	20.5%	18.3%	-2.2 p.p.
🏥 Medicine	Hardly any	17.8%	13.4%	-4.4 p.p.
	Great deal	51.8%	50.6%	-1.2 p.p.
🎖️ Military	Hardly any	14.8%	7.6%	-7.2 p.p.
	Great deal	36.3%	53.4%	+17.1 p.p.
💪 Organized Labor	Hardly any	31.5%	22.6%	-8.9 p.p.
	Great deal	10.2%	13.9%	+3.7 p.p.
🙏 Religion	Hardly any	23.0%	26.4%	+3.4 p.p.
	Great deal	25.8%	20.0%	-5.8 p.p.
📰 Press	Hardly any	19.0%	50.0%	+31 p.p.
	Great deal	24.5%	7.6%	-16.9 p.p.
🥼 Scientific Community	Hardly any	7.4%	6.1%	-1.3 p.p.
	Great deal	41.7%	42.1%	+0.4 p.p.
📺 Television	Hardly any	23.4%	43.1%	+19.7 p.p.
	Great deal	18.4%	9.8%	-8.6 p.p.
⚖️ U.S. Supreme Court	Hardly any	19.2%	17.4%	-1.8 p.p.
	Great deal	31.8%	26.3%	-5.5 p.p.

Banks and financial institutions have also suffered a bad rep in the public eye. Their “great deal of confidence” metric has dropped sharply from 32.3% to 14.1% in four decades.

One major exception is the military, which emerges as the most trusted institution. Americans’ faith in the military has also shown the most improvement, with a 17.1 p.p increase in a “great deal of confidence” since 1975.

The Split Widens Further

While measuring public confidence in institutions can be subjective, it provides an understanding of where Americans want to see change and reform take place.

For more on how Americans perceive different institutions and the issues that affect them, see how the public is divided based on political affiliation.