Young people don’t trust the federal government, but will work for it

Lack of trust in the federal government is not necessarily a barrier to young people wanting to work for it, according to new survey data. 

In August, the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan good government group, conducted a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults aged 18-34 that asked respondents to rate how much they trust the federal government on a scale from zero to 10. 

In total, 30% of participants rated the government between six and 10. Unlike past PPS research, this survey did not find large differences based on political affiliation, with only 37% of young Democrats, 30% of young Republicans and 23% of young independents giving a six to 10 rating. 

Nadzeya Shutava, a PPS research manager who authored the report, argued that the survey’s finding on lack of partisan differences could be positive. 

“Ideology is not the biggest issue here…if you look at it from the perspective of what can we do to engage people to have them trust the government, the solutions are likely to appeal broadly, and that’s a great thing,” she said at a Thursday event co-hosted with the Syracuse University Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship that focused on young people’s relationship with the federal government. 

PPS in July also conducted four focus groups each with nine to 11 participants aged 18-34 and asked them to provide one or two words that came to their minds when they think of the federal government. “Corrupt” was the most common word. 

Despite these documented negative feelings toward government from young people, researchers have found that many in this demographic would still become federal employees. 

“Some of the people [in the focus group] who had thumbs down, the most negative impressions of the government, were still ‘Oh, so the government is hiring. That's interesting,’” Shutava said. “There was one lady who said ‘I'm going to contact my cousin. He's looking for a job right now.’”

Speakers at the event referenced PPS survey data from earlier this year that found 67% of 18-to-34-year-olds agree that a federal career is an opportunity to improve their communities; although, 68% reported that they’ve never considered pursuing a non-military federal job. 

The PPS report accompanying the new survey data recommended that federal agencies build trust with young people by using the following strategies: 

• Communicate more authentically, especially by acknowledging challenges and not just sharing positive news. 
• Modernize digital presence, such as by interacting with members of the public on social media. 
• Leverage trusted messengers, including possibly relevant social media influencers. 
• Tell relatable stories about the work federal employees do, in addition to clearly describing job opportunities on popular job-search websites. (Experts have identified jargon-filled job postings on usajobs.gov, the federal government’s careers website, as a barrier to recruiting Gen Z workers in particular.)

“I think the biggest thing to me would be communicating more authentically, whether it's using more trusted influencers outside of government to partner [with],” said Mark Jacobson, PPS vice president of Research, Evaluation and Modernizing Government. “This is not the running of government, but look how political campaigns use influencers for different audiences, whether they're young people or different demographics. The federal government should do this.”  

PPS’ survey of 18-34-year-olds found that 25% of respondents believe social media influencers are effective at communicating government information, which is higher than elected officials (20%) and government spokespeople (15%). However just 14% said that they trust influencers to communicate such information. 

Jacobson expressed concerns that agencies won’t be able to effectively implement these strategies because of the lack of young federal employees. 

“Who in the federal government are the champions for modernizing the digital presence and making sure that it's done in such a way as to communicate with younger people?” he asked. 

PPS has reported that only 7% of the full-time civil service was under the age of 30 at the end of fiscal 2022 compared with 20% of the overall U.S. labor force. 

Undergraduate Syracuse students and federal employees under the age of 35 who spoke at the event argued that the federal government doesn’t always reach young people where they’re at. 

Kyle Gardiner, a policy analyst at the Office of Management and Budget, said consulting firm recruiters would come to his graduate school and tout their work with the federal government, yet agencies themselves didn’t do much direct recruitment at his school. As a student, he also didn’t understand how to apply for federal jobs. 

Likewise, student Xenia Zolano-Doroteo has found the government job search to be unintuitive. 

“Unless you go on a government website — at least in my experience and what I’ve seen so far — and scroll all the way down to where it says ‘jobs’ or ‘careers’ or ‘opportunities,’ and then you subscribe, it's really hard to know when these positions open up,” she said.