Americans’ opinion of federal government drops off a cliff
Just one-third of U.S. residents have a favorable opinion of the federal government, the lowest positive rating in 15 years. Nearly twice as many — 62 percent — have an unfavorable view, according to a Pew Research Center national survey, titled “Growing Gap in Favorable Views of Federal, State Governments.” Not long ago, in 2002, 64 percent of Americans surveyed rated the feds favorably.
By contrast, ratings of state governments remain in positive territory, with 52 percent offering a favorable and 42 percent an unfavorable opinion of their state government. And local governments are viewed even more positively. By roughly two-to-one (61 percent to 31 percent) most Americans offer a favorable assessment of their local government.
Although favorability ratings for state governments declined between 2008 and 2009 as the financial crisis hit, they have remained steady over the past four years. As a result, the gap between ratings of state governments and the federal government has grown.
While the balance of opinion toward state governments is favorable, majorities say their state government is not careful with people’s money (56 percent), is too divided along party lines (53 percent) and is generally inefficient (51 percent). But much larger percentages fault the federal government’s performance in those areas. Moreover, while more say their state government is mostly honest rather than mostly corrupt (by 49 percent to 37 percent), a majority (54 percent) says the federal government is mostly corrupt.
The overall decline in favorability toward the federal government is consistent with other views of government. Recent Pew Research Center studies have shown overall public trust in government at or near all-time lows.
In the current survey, 51 percent of Democrats have a favorable opinion of the federal government in Washington, compared with 27 percent of independents and 20 percent of Republicans. That contrasts with partisan views of the federal government when George W. Bush was president. As recently as 2008, Republicans held a more favorable opinion of the federal government in Washington (53 percent) than did Democrats (29 percent).
Since Barack Obama’s first year in office, Americans’ ratings of the federal government have dropped nine points, with most of the change among Democrats and independents. In 2009, 61 percent of Democrats and 35 percent of independents had favorable opinions of the federal government in Washington. In 2012, those figures stand at 51 percent and 27 percent, respectively. Republicans’ views, already low in 2009, have shown less change.
View the
questionnaire used in the survey.
