- Most US voters don't trust the federal government to do what's right, according to a new poll.
- Trust is lowest among White and Republican respondents.
- But some government agencies remain popular, such as the National Park Service.
The US government has been struggling to lead the country out of a pandemic and while curbing soaring inflation. It faces another key test as Russia attacks Ukraine.
Yet officials' efforts may become hampered by a key reality: Most people living in the United States don't trust the federal government to do what's right, according to a new poll from the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to improve government.
Fifty-six percent of poll respondents said they did not trust the government much or at all. Only 40% of respondents said they trusted the federal government "a lot" or "somewhat."
The survey, which the Partnership for Public Service plans to formally release Wednesday, arrives at a time when the federal government has allotted trillions of dollars to disseminate public health guidance, distribute vaccines and treatments, and supply pandemic-related economic relief.
Yet the public's trust deficit is harming the US response to COVID-19 as tens of millions of people choose not to follow vaccination advice, the survey suggests.
A total of 46% respondents who said they were vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus said they trusted the government, compared with 29% of those who had not been vaccinated.
"We are starting to see tangible and negative impacts in absence of trust in government," said Loren DeJonge Schulman, vice president for research and evaluation at the Partnership for Public Service.
More than half of survey respondents said they thought the federal government had a negative general impact on the United States, while 38% thought it had a positive impact.
People's views were often driven by negative personal experiences they had with the federal government — such as long wait times for document processing. The belief that the government is bureaucratic, wasteful, corrupt, and incompetent also contributed.
The survey also reported perceived or real examples of government entities serving some communities better than others. Half of respondents said that the government mostly helped the wealthy. Fifteen percent of respondent said the government didn't help people from any socioeconomic level.
People's trust in government strongly correlated with their political party and race.
Three in five Democratic voters said they had "a lot" or "somewhat" trust that the federal government would do what was right. In comparison, just more than one in four Republicans and independents agreed with that statement.
The government has the highest level of trust among Black Americans, at 51%. Half of Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders said they trusted the government, while trust was lower among Hispanics and whites, at 39% and 38% respectively.
The mistrust can lead members of the public to avoid taking part in benefits or services only offered by the government — so certain demographics won't be sharing what they need and the public in turn can end up worse off, DeJonge Schulman said.
Good news for Social Security, national parks
Other polling over the years, including from the Pew Research Center and Gallup, has shown decreasing trust in government since the 1960s. But past polling hasn't sought to delve deeply into the reasons behind the distrust, said Paul Hitlin, a researcher at the Partnership for Public Service.
This is the first time the Partnership for Public Service has conducted such a poll, and did so with assistance from the firm Freedman Consulting and Impact Research. A total of 2,301 adults took the survey over text and online from October 18, 2021, to October 24, 2021.
The survey, which focused specifically on federal agencies and workers, did uncover some good news for federal workers.
First, it found more people said their personal experiences with the federal government had been positive than not — 48% said yes, versus 38% who said no.
It also found that while people had an overall negative view of Congress and political appointees, they tended to have positive views of government agencies and their roughly 2 million workers, most of whom don't live in the Washington, DC, area.
Getting survey participants to think about career officials "not part of the political dialogue and horse race media coverage" created a more favorable impression of career civil servants, DeJonge Schulman said.
The most popular agency was the National Park Service, which maintains national parks for roughly 300 million visitors a year. A total of 84% of respondents viewed the agency favorably. Next in line was the Social Security Administration, which 69% of respondents viewed favorably.
Almost two-thirds of respondents said they had a positive view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has been leading the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Veterans Affairs and US Census Bureau also received high marks.
The Internal Revenue Service had the lowest marks, with 42% viewing the tax agency favorably versus 51 percent who did not.
The majority of the public also reported that they thought most federal workers were doing a public service, were hard workers, and were competent.
Still, about half of respondents also agreed that federal employees were "more interested in helping themselves than the public" and that factors such as benefits, job security, and salary outweighed other reasons people might have for choosing a government job, such as wanting to serve their communities.
The Partnership for Public Service plans to help government agencies get the word out about their work, because their evaluations during focus groups found that people have a more favorable view of government once they have a better sense about the work that civil servants do.
"We witnessed people saying they think about it differently now and re-examined their biases," Hitlin said.
The Partnership for Public Service plans to publish other surveys about trust in government in the coming months. Future research would include polling on how the government should reform to become more trustworthy, DeJonge Schulman said.
"There are good and valid reasons for people to lose faith because of failures we have witnessed in the past," DeJonge Schulman said. "But there have been fewer efforts to purposefully try to rebuild that trust."