Political Science 101 says that as the economy improves, people place more trust in their institutions. It is therefore understandable that after the 2008 financial crisis, trust would plummet. But as the chart above shows, public attitudes about job prospects have now recovered to pre-2008 levels. Satisfaction with life in the United States remains pretty low, but it has recovered to pre-2008 levels. And yet … well, I’ll let Gallup’s Jim Norman do the summing up:
Even as Americans regain confidence in the economy and are no longer in the depths of dissatisfaction with the way things are going in the nation, they remain reluctant to put much faith in these institutions at the core of American society.
Each institution has its own specific probable causes for this situation. But the loss of faith in so many at one time, while Americans are becoming more positive in other ways, suggests there are reasons that reach beyond any individual institution. The task of identifying and dealing with those reasons in a way that rebuilds confidence is one of the more important challenges facing the nation’s leaders in the years ahead.
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