- Click here for the article.
Approval of the job Congress is doing is now at 18%. Just 8% of Americans have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress, putting it at the bottom of a list of U.S. institutions tested. Further, 15%rate the job that Congress is doing as "excellent" or "good," a percentage that drops to 7% among those who are the most knowledgeable about Congress. Over half say that most members of Congress are corrupt, and the perceived honesty and ethics of members of Congress are near the bottom of a list of all professions tested.
All of this shows up when we ask Americans about the most important problem facing the nation today. "Dissatisfaction with government" is near the top of the list, and was the single most commonly mentioned concern for all of 2015.
Yet, few Americans mention Congress or dysfunctional government when asked in an open-ended fashion to name the top issue on which they want the next president to focus. In other words, the major perceived problems with how the U.S. government functions clearly come to mind when Americans think about the top issues facing the country, but not when Americans think about the problems the next president should address.
