Editorial correction — September 20, 2026. The earlier opening falsely said every institution was below one-third confidence. The 27% figure is an average across 14 institutions, not a rating shared by each institution or the percentage trusting all of them. Expanded September 20, 2026 with additional primary-source data and a Sources list.
Gallup’s latest reading of American confidence in institutions is low by any historical standard: an average of 27% across 14 core institutions. That figure is easy to misuse, because an average is not a rating for every institution and it says nothing about who is doing the trusting. This article explains what Gallup measured, what sits underneath the average, and what a second source, Pew’s long-running trust-in-government series, adds.
What the 27% is
Gallup’s report, written by Lydia Saad and published July 13, 2026, is based on interviewing conducted June 1 to 15. Respondents were asked how much confidence they have in each of a list of institutions, and the figure counts those who said “a great deal” or “quite a lot.” Across the 14 institutions Gallup has measured every year since 1993, that average is 27%. The record low was 26% in 2023, so the current reading is one point above it. Gallup also reports the average for the nine institutions it has measured about annually since 1979, and it is also 27%.
The 14 core institutions are seven public sector bodies (the presidency, Congress, the public schools, the Supreme Court, the military, the criminal justice system and the police) and seven private sector ones (banks, big business, organized labor, the medical system, newspapers, television news, and the church or organized religion). Because the list mixes government and private institutions, Gallup treats it as a barometer of national confidence, not of trust in government alone.
Why an average can mislead
An average conceals its parts. Suppose, purely for illustration, that two institutions scored 50% and 10%. Their simple average would be 30%, yet neither would have a 30% rating. The same logic applies here: the 27% does not mean every institution sits near 27%, and it is not the share of people who trust all of them. It is a summary, and the useful information is in what varies around it.
How the history looks
Gallup describes the decline since 1979 as driven by several steep drops instead of a gradual slide. Confidence fell sharply in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s, and each time partially recovered. A sharper fall in the mid-2000s, associated with the start of the Great Recession, proved harder to reverse: confidence stayed at its 2007 low and sank further over the following nine years. There was a significant improvement in 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by higher trust in the medical system and public schools. It did not last, and the average sank to 27% in 2022. Gallup notes that it has now averaged under 30% for the fifth consecutive year.
Gallup lists several factors that it says may have contributed: recessions, high inflation and other economic problems, views of the presidency (it cites the Iraq War and the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan), the Supreme Court (including the Dobbs decision), backlash to COVID-19 policies affecting the medical system and public schools, and religion (clergy abuse scandals and declining religiosity). It adds increasing political polarization. These are Gallup’s interpretations of possible contributors, not findings that this survey can prove one by one.
What sits under the average
Twelve of the 14 core institutions are at or near their lowest points. The exceptions are banks and organized labor, each seven points above its historical low. So the average is low mostly because low confidence is widespread, not because a few institutions are dragging down a healthy group.
The same June survey also measured institutions outside the core group, and the results differ sharply. Higher education, which Gallup also included, is at or near its lowest point, though the release text does not give its figure.
| Institution (outside the core 14) | Confidence, June 2026 | Gallup’s context |
|---|---|---|
| Small business | 67% | Similar to its average since the first reading in 1997; 10 points above its 1998 low |
| Large technology companies | 20% | A new low; 32% when first measured in 2020 |
Big Tech stands out. Gallup found that the share of Americans expressing very little or no confidence in large technology companies rose from 32% in 2025 to 41% now, while 38% said they have some confidence. It was the only institution rated in 2026 with such a surge in outright distrust. Small business shows that low confidence is not a blanket American attitude toward all organizations. It varies with what the institution is and what people think it does.
The partisan divide
The average also hides a large partisan gap. Gallup reports that Republicans are now 13 points more confident in U.S. institutions overall than Democrats, compared with an 11-point gap last year. Gallup attributes this to Democrats, for the first time, showing less confidence when a Republican president takes office, while Republican confidence has surged. Over the decades Gallup describes the gap shifting with the party in the White House: widening in Democrats’ favor under Bill Clinton, reversing under George W. Bush, narrowing under Barack Obama, swinging toward Republicans in Donald Trump’s first term, then toward Democrats under Joe Biden.
| Institution | Republican-minus-Democratic gap in confidence |
|---|---|
| The presidency | 70 points |
| The military | 46 points |
| The police | 45 points |
| The Supreme Court | 40 points |
| The church or organized religion | 40 points |
Gallup reports these gaps with a Republican president in office. Democrats show more confidence than Republicans in higher education, the public schools, organized labor, newspapers and television news. The gaps are smaller for Congress, banks and the medical system.
Gallup’s own reading is that Americans no longer appear to share a broad faith in core civic, social and government institutions, and that their confidence increasingly depends on who holds political power. That is a claim about the shape of the numbers as well as their level: a low average can mean widespread distrust or it can mean two groups holding opposite views that partly cancel. Here the evidence points to both.
A second measure: trust in government
Pew Research Center tracks a related but different question: how much people trust the federal government in Washington to do what is right. In its December 4, 2025 fact sheet, 17% said they trust it just about always (2%) or most of the time (15%). That is lower than the 22% recorded the year before, and among the lowest readings since the question was first asked in 1958, when 73% said so. Pew reports that by 1980 only about a quarter expressed a high level of trust, and that the share has not been above 30% at any point since 2007. Pew also finds trust is higher among members of the party that controls the presidency.
The two series are not interchangeable. Gallup asks about confidence in a range of specific institutions. Pew asks about trust in one entity. But both show a long decline, a low present level, and a strong link between trust and which party is in power.
What these numbers do not settle
Low confidence is not proof that institutions are failing, and high confidence would not prove they are sound. Confidence reflects performance, partisanship, media, personal experience and mood, and a survey cannot separate them. It also does not tell us what people do about their distrust. Gallup does offer one qualifier worth keeping: past drops in confidence have eventually reversed, although recoveries have rarely restored earlier highs, so each downturn has tended to end lower than the one before.
How to read the next release
- Say “average across the institutions measured,” and name how many.
- Look at individual institutions, because the spread is wide.
- Check the partisan breakdown before treating any figure as a national consensus.
- Do not merge different questions: confidence in institutions, trust in government and trust in the news are separate measures.
- Read explanations of cause as explanations, not as results.
Sources
- Gallup, Lydia Saad, “Confidence in U.S. Institutions Remains Near All-Time Low,” July 13, 2026: news.gallup.com/poll/712436
- Pew Research Center, “Public Trust in Government: 1958-2025,” fact sheet, December 4, 2025: pewresearch.org/politics/2025/12/04/public-trust-in-government-1958-2025