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Trust in Government

New Hampshire 2009 Civic Health Index

November 16, 2009

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Civic knowledge, interest in politics, and respect for the democratic process do not necessarily translate into trust in government. Although a large majority of New Hampshire
residents say that the government in Washington, D.C., can be trusted to do what is right (81 percent), most qualify their sense of trust to indicate that this is true “only some of the time” (60 percent). By contrast, only one in ﬁve (21 percent) said that the federal government can be trusted “most of the time.” Trust in state and in local government is higher, though still highly qualiﬁed, with approximately one-third of New Hampshire residents saying that state (37 percent) and local government (33 percent) can be trusted to do what is right most of the time (see Figure 13). The patterns of trust in government observed for New Hampshire residents parallel those for Americans nationwide.

The general skepticism toward government decision making extended to respondents’ attitudes toward the recent economic stimulus package. A large minority, 40 percent, said that they had hardly any conﬁdence that the federal government would spend the stimulus money responsibly, though again, respondents were more likely to express conﬁdence in the ability of state and local government to act responsibly in regard to stimulus spending. Nonetheless, those saying that they had a great deal of conﬁdence in either local (14 percent), state (14 percent), or federal (10 percent) government stimulus spending was
relatively low. It is interesting to note that churchgoers expressed more trust in local government than did non-churchgoers, a ﬁnding that may reﬂect churchgoers’ volunteer experiences of occasionally working with local government ofﬁcials in social service activities.

Political Involvement • Confidence in Institutions

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