Politics
Gallup found 89% of Americans believe government corruption is widespread — a 10-point jump and the largest single-year increase since 2006. The US now leads all OECD nations in perceived corruption. 91% of Democrats, 90% of independents, and 83% of Republicans agree.
NewsOnScale Staff
September 24, 2026
A new Gallup poll conducted between May 1 and June 10 2026 found that 89 percent of American adults believe corruption is widespread throughout the US government. That is the highest number Gallup has recorded since it began tracking this question in 2006. It is a 10-point jump from last year — the largest single-year increase in the survey's history.
For the first time ever the United States now leads all 38 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in perceived government corruption. The OECD median in 2025 was 59 percent. The US figure is 89 percent — 30 points above our peer nations.
The countries that currently score comparably to the United States are Lebanon at 92 percent, Peru at 92 percent, Ghana at 90 percent, and Nigeria at 90 percent.
Who Believes It
The perception of widespread corruption is bipartisan — which makes it more significant not less.
91 percent of Democrats and 90 percent of independents reported corruption, while 83 percent of Republicans share that view.
Democrats drove most of the increase — their perception of widespread government corruption rose from 57 percent in 2024 to 91 percent in 2026. But 83 percent of Republicans also believe government corruption is widespread. That is not a partisan finding. That is a national consensus.
A University of Massachusetts Amherst survey released the same week found 97 percent of respondents believed at least some corruption exists within the government.
What the Number Reflects
The US has increasingly diverged from other advanced economies in perceptions of government corruption. The median level of perceived corruption among OECD countries has fallen from 69% in 2009 to below 60% since 2022.
While other advanced democracies have been reducing perceived corruption over the past decade the United States has been going in the opposite direction. Between 2010 and 2025 the American figure ranged between 72 and 79 percent. It now stands at 89 percent.
Americans also increasingly perceive corruption in business — 71 percent say business corruption is widespread, up 8 points from last year. The gap between government corruption perception and business corruption perception is 18 points — the largest recorded by Gallup in the United States since 2006.
What Is Actually Documented
The poll measures perception — not documented corruption. But perception does not emerge from nothing. The documented record over the past two years includes:
A president making over 1,000 stock trades in a single month — including buying and selling shares in a government contractor he has regulatory authority over, the same month that contractor's IPO completed.
A federal civil asset forfeiture fund that has grown from $93.7 million in 1986 to $4.5 billion in 2014 — operating outside normal congressional appropriations with limited real-time oversight.
A government that lost $1.4 trillion to improper payments between 2019 and 2025 — documented by its own Government Accountability Office — with nine of ten corrective recommendations still unimplemented.
A Pentagon that quietly revised its official count of Americans killed in an undeclared war — with a US government official saying the new counting method was designed to obscure the count.
A Dixie County Board of County Commissioners that held ten public meetings with one to two days notice while considering data center development over unanimous community opposition. A county with two federal corruption convictions in the past 15 years.
These are not perceptions. They are documented facts. The 89 percent number reflects a public that has been paying attention.
What This Means for 2028
Pew Research Center reported in December that just 17% of Americans trusted the federal government to do what is right always or most of the time.
17 percent trust. 89 percent perceive widespread corruption. Those two numbers together describe the crisis of institutional legitimacy that American democracy is navigating heading into the 2028 election cycle.
A candidate who has filed a billion dollar federal civil complaint against eight of the most powerful corporations in the world — pro se, with a $405 filing fee — and who has been documenting local government corruption from Florida, is not running against a person. He is running against a number. The number is 89.
The people who make up that 89 percent are not wrong. They are paying attention. The question for 2028 is whether the candidate they choose to address it will be someone connected to the institutions producing those numbers — or someone who has been fighting those institutions from the outside for years.
DISCLOSURE: NewsOnScale is an independent media publication owned and operated by AMILLI AI CORP. JJ Johnson is the founder of AMILLI AI CORP and a declared candidate for President of the United States in 2028. All polling data in this article is drawn directly from Gallup's published survey results at news.gallup.com, The Hill, Axios, The Fulcrum, and US News and World Report reporting published September 2 2026.