Americans' confidence in the integrity of the federal government has fallen to one of the lowest levels ever recorded. According to a survey by the Gallup institute, 89% of American adults believe corruption is widespread in the United States government, the highest percentage since the survey began in 2006. The result represents a 10 percentage point increase from the previous year, standing well above the range of 72% to 79% recorded between 2010 and 2025.
The growth in corruption perception was driven mainly by Democratic voters. In 2024, the last full year of Joe Biden's administration, 57% of Democrats considered corruption widespread in government. The percentage rose to 76% in 2025, already in the first year of Donald Trump's second term, and reached 91% in the most recent survey. Among independent voters, the index stood at 90%, a jump of 12 percentage points since 2024. Among Republicans, 83% gave the same response, a decrease of 4 percentage points from the 87% recorded in 2024.
In international comparison, the United States today appears among the few countries in the world with such elevated corruption perception. The median across the 38 OECD member countries fell from 69% in 2009 to below 60% from 2022 onward, standing at 59% in 2025. The United States, on the other hand, continues in the opposite direction and trails only nations such as Lebanon, Peru, Ghana and Nigeria in recent Gallup surveys.
The survey also showed that the perception of corruption in American businesses increased, rising from 63% to 71% in one year, but the difference between the view on the public and private sectors, at 18 percentage points, is the highest ever recorded by Gallup in the United States since 2006. It is important to note that the survey measures exclusively the population's perception and does not necessarily represent a proven increase in the actual number of corruption cases. The data was collected between May 1 and June 10, 2026, through telephone interviews with a sample of 1,000 American adults, with a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.
