Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread
Gallup polling shows that 89% of U.S. adults now believe government corruption is widespread, the highest level in two decades and a 10-point jump from last year. The surge is driven largely by Democrats, whose perceptions rose from 57% in 2024 to 91% in 2026, while Republicans' views remained steady. The U.S. now leads OECD countries in perceived government corruption, and the gap between perceptions of government and business corruption is the largest on record.
In a country where many are polarized across a wide range of issues, this is one case where bipartisanship reflects shared alarm as much as shared consensus.
- autoexec
Corruption in the US isn't new, but it's never been done as openly as it has been recently. I don't think it's a good thing. It shows that the government isn't concerned about what the public thinks, which suggests that they believe they no longer have to be. That's not a healthy sign for what's supposed to be a democracy.
- pseudosavant
Looking at their charts, Democrats and Independents clearly think corruption is up a lot since 2024. But Republicans think corruption is down from 2024. The polarization of the electorate in the U.S. is pretty incredible.
- chr15m
Most democracy measurement projects and indices have shown a decline in democratic performance for the US over the past decade.
EIU reclassified the country from "full democracy" to "flawed democracy" in 2016.
V-Dem went from "liberal democracy" to "electoral democracy" in 2025.
When you have a wide variety of entities measuring the same trend, it is probably broadly correct.
The hope the good citizenry find a fix.
[To be fair the trend is global unfortunately: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/countries-democracies-aut...]
- swed420
Related:
New High of 45% in U.S. Identify as Political Independents (January 12, 2026)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-politi...
- xnx
"Drain the swamp". Everything is projection. What they say about the Democrats is what they are or aspire to be.
- throw0101a
Even before this new record high, in the previous ~15 years the average seemed to be around 75% (±), which seems… high? I would perhaps understand the US public thinking that (some levels of) government being "incompetent", but not corrupt.
By some measure the US does seem to have 'decent' scores for perception of corruption:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
* https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2025
Meta: in some ways it seems that the public's perception of government is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the US there is a large vein of "government is bad/incompetent/corrupt" and that's apparently what the US often gets. While in (e.g.) Scandinavian countries there appears to be a higher level of trust in government, and the people there tend to elect more competent politicians (?).
- Animats
This has to stop. Ask candidates how tough they're willing to get on corruption.
A good starting point for the next administration is to offer an amnesty on criminal prosecution to government employees who report anything of value they received outside their employment during the previous administration. If it's reported, they're safe from criminal prosecution. Anything that's not reported that surfaces later, bribery charges.
Then they have to pay it back to the government. Tangible objects (watches, jewelry) have to be turned in to a forfeiture office. Travel and entertainment are charged at a fixed rate (probably the max value the Government will pay for meals and travel to senior executives, so a trip on a private jet only means a first class fare). Allow easy repayments, with interest at the IRS late payment rate.
That's about the right level of pressure.
- israelrt
In the 2026 Transparency International ranking of corruption, the U.S. sits behind nations such as Uruguay, Lithuania, and the United Arab Emirates.
- yanhangyhy
Its not only the us people. It also change the pro-us or pro-west people's view from countries like china.
Before Trump, people still believe USA is a great country even with so many flaws. Its still has a good reputation.Trump changed everything. He is not a bad leader, he has thoughts, but he cannot implement them with caution. And he destroyed USA's reputation, maybe forever.
Its hard to imaginy the greatest democracy' country, the president is manipulate the stock market, publicly, humiliating his friends country, or vaseel state. When the pro-USA people in china talks how great the USA is and China shoud learn from it, the comments is no longer agree anymore, most of them are mocking.and thats what the younger generation will grow up with, the mindset is: yes china is not perfect, but its way better than the shit countries like USA.
You can see the change in the numbers of graduates return to china after college, its used to be low, not its near or >90%.
- giantg2
Lots of people here are focused on one guy. But the the article says "widespread". In my experience, much of the corruption is at a local or state level. At the federal level it seems the corruption is mostly related to agencies (GAO reports) and lobbying.