Confidence in Government Hits Record Lows

Given Washington’s ongoing political stalemates and scandals, it is perhaps no surprise that Americans’ confidence in the three branches of government shrunk to record lows in the latest of a four-decade-old annual survey.

The Supreme Court enjoyed confidence of only 23 percent of respondents to the annual Associated Press-NORC General Social Survey just released; the executive branch, 11 percent; and Congress, merely 5 percent. All three of those confidence levels are at or near record lows.

Only the military, at 50 percent, enjoyed “a great deal of confidence,” according to the survey done by the University of Chicago-based Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Under President Obama, support for the presidency shrunk to 11 percent in the survey, about where it was in 1996 under President Clinton. The number of respondents who said they had “hardly any confidence” in the executive branch was at a record high of 44 percent, the analysis showed.

The breakdown by political party revealed that both Republicans and Democrats have greater confidence in the executive branch when the sitting president is of their own party. Only 3 percent of Republicans said they have a lot of confidence in the presidency, down from a record high of 45 percent who said so in 2002, when President George W. Bush was riding high approval ratings following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Obama, however, has lost the confidence of some in his own party, with confidence in the presidency dropping from 25 percent in 2010 to 18 percent in 2014.

Though the Supreme Court fared better than the executive branch or Congress, its confidence rate too has fallen to a 40-year low.

The poorest institution at inspiring confidence continued to be Congress. More than half of Americans expressed “hardly any confidence at all” in Congress, with only 7 percent of Democrats, 5 percent of independents and 3 percent of Republicans expressing a great deal of confidence in Congress. Congress fared only slightly better among younger respondents, with 10 percent of those under 35 saying they have a lot of confidence in the legislative branch.

Employees in all three branches might take heart in the fact that similar low confidence levels were expressed in regard to the media, business and labor.

The survey was conducted from March 31-Oct. 11, 2014, among 2,538 American adults.

(Image via f11photo / Shutterstock.com)