In Which Institutions Do Americans Have the Most (and Least) Confidence?

(Eugene Volokh)

The AP-National Constitution Center poll, conducted August 18 to August 22 of this year, asked respondents whether they are "extremely confident, very confident, somewhat confident, not too confident, or not confident at all in the people who are running" that institution. Here's what the respondents said, broken down into rough bands:

BandInstitution% saying extremely/very% saying somewhat% saying not too/not at all %(Extremely/very percentage) minus (not too/not at all percentage)1 Congress 8 35 57 –492 Blogs 8 39 47 –392 Banks 10 42 47 –372 Federal government 10 42 47 –373 Print media 12 48 39 –273 Broadcast media 13 47 40 –273 Organized labor 14 45 38 –243 Major companies 12 52 35 –233 Online news media 13 49 34 –213 State government 13 54 33 –204 Religious institutions 18 46 34 –164 Public schools 20 44 36 –164 Local government 15 55 29 –145 State courts 19 58 21 –25 Supreme Court 24 54 21 36 Charitable institutions 26 56 17 97 Scientific community (universities & research institutes) 33 50 16 178 Small and local companies 40 51 8 329 Military 54 38 8 46

The big changes since last year's poll were a 16% increase in the spread for the military, a 12% increase in the spread (meaning greater confidence) for big business and the Supreme Court, a 9% increase in the spread for banks and charities, and a 7% decrease in the spread (meaning lesser confidence) for Congress.

Naturally, this sort of data is of limited relevance, since many respondents might not have a firm preexisting opinion on the subject, and their response after a few seconds might differ sharply from their views if they discussed the matter for some time. Moreover, some of the categories are pretty wide, and it may well be that people have a much more positive view of (for instance) some organized religious institutions than others. Nonetheless, I thought I'd pass it along in case people were interested.