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Confidence in the people running the executive branch of the federal government: a great deal, only some, or hardly any (GSS, since 1973).
Latest: 12% answered “A great deal” in GSS, 2024.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → web (2021).
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each column is one survey wave, evenly spaced rather than to scale in time; hover for exact shares.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → web (2021).
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each point is one survey wave at the middle of its field period. Lines from different surveys are never spliced together.
Groups differ from everyone by 8 points on average across all answers.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → web (2021).
Groups differ from everyone by 5 points on average across all answers.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → web (2021).
| Line | Question | Match | How answers map |
|---|---|---|---|
| GSS | Confidence in the executive branch I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?
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E. Executive branch of the federal government | identical | A great deal → A great deal; Only some → Only some; Hardly any → Hardly any |
Subgroup charts are picked automatically. Of every breakdown in the data (party, ideology, age, sex, race, education, income, region, religion, and community type), these two put their groups furthest from everyone’s answers: the gap is averaged across all answer categories and waves, with each group weighted by its share of respondents. Party and ideology count as one choice, so the second chart shows a different kind of split. Groups with an effective sample under 50 in a wave are left out of that wave, and changes run from each group’s first wave to its last.