trust in institutions

a survey by the joyce foundation revealed that most midwesterners distrust government. only eight percent "always trusted" the government.
yet a different study reveals that if anything midwesterners are the more trusting bunch. a survey taken earlier this year by zogby interactive noted that only 30% of americans have complete trust in congress. for comparison, the other trust numbers were:

corporate leaders, 7%
the media, 11%
the president, 24%
the courts, 29%
friends & co-workers, 75%

how the media beats corporate leaders for trustworthiness confuses me, but perhaps it's still enron/imclone backlash. or, our bias to view those giving us new information as highly knowledgeable.

so what of the midwesterners' odd trust, if the two US surveys can indeed be linked (which, granted, is a dubious statistical leap because of different samples and different questions)? let's look at a map of economic freedom in the US:

lighter = more free. "midwest" in the survey was MI, OH, MN, WI, IL.

so maybe more unfree=more trusting? if so, which came first? draw your own conclusions, of course. this is only one measure; the midwest probably differs in a countless ways, e.g. friendliness, industries, size/make-up of immigrant populations, culture, caramel apple consumption, etc. and we also don't know what trust levels were in those other dark states.

more on silly map comparisons.

Labels: political