Public Trust in U.S. Government Nears Historic Lows
11th February 2026
Gee, I wonder why.
The United States has fallen to its lowest-ever rank in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), a leading global index that measures perception of corruption in the public sector among independent experts and business people. In 2025, the U.S. fell down one spot to 29th place (out of 182) with a score of 64/100 on a 0 to 100 scale, where 0 means highly corrupt and 100 completely clean. This ranking puts the country on the same level as the Bahamas, and below Uruguay (17th place), Bhutan (18th) and the United Arab Emirates (21st). The United States had been on a slow decline in the index since 2017, when the country scored 75/100.
Several factors have impacted the U.S.’ score, including measures put in place last year by the Trump administration that have severy hindered the federal government’s ability to fight public corruption, such as pausing investigations into corporate foreign bribery, weakening institutions or curtailing enforcement of a foreign agent registration law.
According to recent aggregated data from the Pew Research Center based on series of national polls, trust in the government was nearing historic lows at the end of 2025, with only 17 percent of Americans trusing the government to do what is right just about always or most of the time. As our infographic shows, trust in the government has been on a slow decline since it peaked at 54 percent in October 2001, during George W. Bush’s first term (such a high level of approval hadn’t been recorded since the early 1970s, under President Nixon). The lowest level recorded since 2000 was in October 2011, under President Obama. Trust in the government hit a low of 15 percent, which coincided with the announcement of the official withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year and the expansion of the Occupy Wall Street movement.