Gallup Poll: Confidence in U.S. Banks Stood at 60 Percent in 1979. Today, It Stands at 26 Percent.

July 12, 2023

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens Wall Street on Parade

The polling organization, Gallup, conducted a survey between June 1-22 to update its annual poll that measures the confidence that Americans have in key U.S. institutions. Banks, as might be expected, continued their downward trend, registering an abysmal 26 percent of Americans who have “a great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the banks. That confidence ranking stood at 27 percent last year and at 33 percent in 2021.

It is actually somewhat baffling that confidence in banks only dropped by one percentage point from last year, given that the second, third and fourth largest bank failures in U.S. history occurred in the first half of this year.

Measured against a longer time horizon, confidence in U.S. banks looks far worse. In 1979, the Gallup poll showed 60 percent of Americans had confidence in the banks. In the years prior to the Wall Street financial crisis of 2008, roughly half of Americans had confidence in the banks. The 2008 crisis pulled back the dark curtain that had surrounded the mega banks on Wall Street, revealing them to be trading casinos on steroids, in drag as federally-insured banks.