TheCorporateCounsel.net

Early last year, I blogged that business had emerged as a beacon of trust in stormy times. Eighteen months later, we’re stuck in disinformation quicksand – and we’ve now reached record-low average confidence across all institutions. That’s according to the latest edition of a Gallup poll that’s been measuring sentiment for over four decades. Here’s more detail on business-related institutions (ranked from highest to lowest confidence):

– Organized Labor: Unions held steady with 28% of participants having a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in organized labor both this year and last year.

– Banks: Banks garnered confidence from 27% of participants – down from 33% last year. Republicans have lost more confidence in banks than the other party groups have.

– Big Tech: 26% of participants have confidence in large technology companies. This is also a low point, but Gallup has only measured confidence in this category for the past 3 years.

– Newspapers: Newspapers dropped by 5 points, to 16%.

– Big Business: Only 14% of survey participants have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in “big business” – down from 18% last year. This is the lowest level since at least 1979.

– TV News: Televised news also dropped by 5 points, to 11%.

The poll doesn’t analyze what’s driving the decline in confidence for each specific institution. For big business, sentiment is lowest among Democrats and Independents (both at 13%), whereas confidence among Republicans is hovering at 19% (just 1 point lower than last year). And although “big business” is bottoming out, 68% of Americans have a lot of confidence in “small business” – more than any other institution. It sure would be nice if we could bottle up that confidence and sprinkle it everywhere else.

– Liz Dunshee