Less Than a Quarter of Americans Trust Financial System
Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index also finds average Americans and top economists have different views on economic policies

January 26, 2012 – The latest issue of the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index finds that only 23 percent of Americans say they trust the country’s financial system. And, trust for banks continues to slide downward.
 
“We are continuing to report relatively low trust overall, hovering at the same level as our last quarterly report and as low as the earliest months of the economic crisis. In particular, trust in banks has continued to fall – now at 30 percent from 39 percent in June 2011,” said Paola Sapienza, co-author of the Financial Trust Index, a quarterly look at trust in America’s financial system. She is also the Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Research professor of finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Also, 62 percent of people surveyed described themselves as angry or very angry about the current economic situation. “This is the highest level of anger we’ve measured since March 2009,” said Sapienza. “In an election year, this certainly indicates the importance of the economy to the political agenda.”

The Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index measures public opinion over three-month periods to track changes in attitude. Today’s report is the 13th quarterly update and is based on a survey conducted in December 2011.

Wave 13 Results