"Young Americans’ confidence in the apparatus of government has dropped dramatically to one of the lowest levels in any prosperous country, a Financial Times analysis of Gallup data shows.
The Gallup polls, conducted by surveying 70,000 people globally over the course of 2023 and 2024, found that less than a third of under-30s in the US trust the government. The proportion of US young people who said they lack freedom to choose what to do with their lives also hit a record high at 31 per cent in 2024 — a level worse than all other rich economies, bar Greece and Italy.
“[For younger people in the US] the future seems kind of bleak,” said Julie Ray, managing editor at Gallup.
While the Gallup poll does not cover the direct repercussions of US President Donald Trump’s second term, experts believe that rising political polarisation is likely to lead to a sharp drop in trust in future surveys.
Connor Brennan, a 25-year-old financial economics PhD student at the University of Chicago and a disillusioned Republican, said he trusted the “big figures” in politics “a little less” now than in the past.
“Friends, families these days are more and more torn apart by politics and seeing that [politics] taken as almost entertainment,” Brennan said. “It should be boring . . . it really has become more and more like, you watch the latest episode of the sitcom.”"
https://www.ft.com/content/44a7927b-66d7-4321-8425-08ed162a3994