Federal Government Policy and Business

Poll: Government Corruption Seen as Rising, Especially at White House

Government Executive: Six out of 10 Americans say that the level of corruption in society has worsened in the past year, up from one third a year ago, according to a nationwide poll released on Tuesday by the nonprofit Transparency International.

Forty-four percent of Americans believe that corruption is pervasive in the White House, up from 36 percent in 2016, pollsters found after analyzing computer assisted interviewing of a random group of 1,005 adult respondents in October and November. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all U.S. adults by age, gender, social grade, region, rural/urban area and ethnicity, the group said.

Choosing from nine influential groups in government, business and religion, respondents picked the Office of the President as the most corrupt, at 44 percent. Government institutions such as Congress and agency officials only fared slightly better than the White House. Nearly a third of respondents said that “most or all” business leaders are corrupt. The least corrupt group, respondents said, is judges, with only 16 percent thinking of them as corrupt.

Read article