Public Trust In US Government Nears Historic Lows

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 are blamed for the U.S.’ poor score, including measures put in place last year by the Trump administration that have severely 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.

In a statement published yesterday, Transparency International wrote:

“Our data show that democracies, typically stronger on anti-corruption than autocracies or flawed democracies, are experiencing a worrying decline in performance. This trend spans countries such as the United States (64), Canada (75) and New Zealand (81), to various parts of Europe, like the United Kingdom (70), France (66) and Sweden (80). Another concerning pattern is increasing restrictions by many states on freedoms of expression, association and assembly.”

On the United States, the anti-curruption coalition added: “Although 2025 developments are not yet fully reflected, actions targeting independent voices and undermining judicial independence raise serious concerns. Beyond the CPI findings, the temporary freeze and weakening of enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act signal tolerance for corrupt business practices, while cuts to US aid for overseas civil society have weakened global anti-corruption efforts. Political leaders elsewhere have taken this as a cue to further restrict NGOs, journalists and other independent voices.”

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 trusting the government to do what is right just about always or most of the time.

As Statista’s Valentine Fourreau shows in the infographic below, 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).

You will find more infographics at Statista

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.