
GALLUP (Washington, D.C.) — Three in four Americans (75%) last year perceived corruption as widespread in the country’s government. This figure is up from two in three in 2007 (67%) and 2009 (66%).
While the numbers have fluctuated slightly since 2007, the trend has been largely stable since 2010. However, the percentage of U.S. adults who see corruption as pervasive has never been less than a majority in the past decade, which has had no shortage of controversies from the U.S. Justice Department’s firings of U.S. attorneys to the IRS scandal.

This is why it is most appropriate to look at perceptions of corruption through such lenses as the Freedom House’s Press Freedom rankings. Ratings vary among countries with a “free press,” including the U.S., and range from a high of 90% in Lithuania to a low of 14% in Sweden. The U.S. does not make the top 10 list, but notably, it is not far from it.
These data are available in Gallup Analytics.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,000 U.S. adults each year, aged 15 and older, conducted between 2007 and 2014. For results based on the total sample of national adults in the U.S., the margin of sampling error has typically been ±4.0 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
For results based on the total sample of national adults across the 134 countries surveyed in 2014, the margin of sampling error ranged from ±2.1 percentage points to ±5.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
The margin of error reflects the influence of data weighting. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
For more complete methodology and specific survey dates, please review Gallup’s Country Data Set details.
Learn more about how the Gallup World Poll works.
Justice Dept ‘leaker’ says Trump will change things big time re USA corruption – Very striking conversation on 4chan /pol/ site, with someone who claims to be an insider US Department of Justice (FBI etc) government official, deeply involved in the criminal investigations affecting Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump etc
The key take-away from this ‘US Justice Dept official’ is that, though Clinton & Trump are both corrupt, Trump’s corruption is minor relative to the Clintons & their ‘Foundation’… and that a Clinton presidency – which he thinks will not happen – would involve global war with Russia & China
Whereas, this ‘US Justice Department official’ says, honest US officials hope for a Trump presidency, as they believe Donald Trump will begin a pull-back on US war-making & a clean-up of US corruption including indictment of Hillary Clinton
This ‘US official’ says that USA ex-President Bill Clinton will likely be dead this year
This ‘US official’ says that, “The entire government is corrupt .. you cannot possibly ask the entire government to prosecute itself”
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This ‘US official’ says that the Clinton e-mail scandal is relatively trivial, the big crimes are related to the ‘Clinton Foundation’, not just bribery etc relating to the US, horrid crimes by powerful individuals, but also regarding issues of war & relations among nations
This ‘US official’ says that Trump is also ‘corrupt’, sufficiently so that he could be criminally charged … but much less so than Clinton
This ‘US official’ says that if Clinton would become President – which he thinks is actually unlikely, Clinton may be removed – there would be war with Russia & China, and a nightmare of corruption involving string-puller Soros & significant Jewish influence
This ‘US official’ says that, US Justice ministry staff are in general in fear of being killed, for taking any actions regarding the immense wall of corruption which they comprehend, which is much larger than most anyone would guess
This ‘US official’ says that, for all his failings, if elected, Trump will actually do some house-cleaning in the US regime, criminally prosecute Hillary Clinton & do much against US corruption
This ‘US official’ says that, the difficulty is, there is so much corruption that if it were all exposed, US government would collapse, there would be civil war inside the US, & perhaps global military alliance against the US
This ‘US official’ says that, amidst the difficulty, a somewhat ‘controlled’ and step-by-step unveiling of the corruption – as Trump would do – is likely the best route to serve the public
Here is the 4chan discussion with this ‘US official’ in a photo-image … the comments by the ‘US official’ are highlighted in peach-orange coloured boxes … click on image to enlarge
https://i.sli.mg/WuG4nP.png