Public trust in government is at a historic low, influenced in part by rising inequality, political polarization, the impact of climate change, and macro-level economic downturns. In our collective decades of public service, we’ve witnessed this erosion firsthand. And while governments around the world are grappling with a deficit in public trust, recent research from McKinsey, in partnership with Qualtrics, shows declining government trust in the U.S. is most acute among low-income residents. According to the study’s findings, low-income residents in the U.S. earning less than $25,000 a year are a staggering 18 percentage points less likely to be satisfied with government services than higher-earning residents. This is especially concerning given that these are the precise individuals most likely to need and rely on government services.
How U.S. Government Agencies Can Fix Their Customer-Service Problem
Low-income residents are key to restoring trust in U.S. government. Residents in the U.S. earning less than $25,000 a year are a staggering 18 percentage points less likely to be satisfied with government services than higher-earning residents. To fix this, federal and state governments can improve accessibility and reach of their services (for instance, a quarter of low-income Americans don’t own a smartphone). They can also empower residents to engage by stripping complex language and jargon from their communications. Focusing on customer experience has an amplifying effect. A recent McKinsey study found that “a gain in average customer satisfaction of one percentage point is associated with an increase in trust in state government of 1.3 percentage points on average, and up to 1.5 percentage points in some cases.”