Charted: How Americans Feel About Federal Government Agencies

Chart: How Americans Rate 16 Federal Government AgenciesCome election time, America won’t hesitate to show its approval or disapproval of the country’s elected political representatives. That said, feelings about the federal bureaucracy and its associated agencies are a little harder to gauge.We chart the results from an opinion poll conducted by Pew Research Center between March 13-19, 2023. In it, 10,701 adults—a representative of the U.S. adult population—were asked whether they felt favorably or unfavorably towards 16 different federal government agencies.

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Americans Love the Park Service, Are Divided Over the IRS
Broadly speaking, 14 of the 16 federal government agencies garnered more favorable responses than unfavorable ones.Of them, the Parks Service, Postal Service, and NASA all had the approval of more than 70% of the respondents. 

Agency Favorable Unfavorable Not sure  National Park Service 81% 7% 12%  U.S. Postal Service 77% 20% 3%  NASA 74% 9% 17%  Social Security
Administration 61% 28% 12%  CDC 56% 38% 6%  Veterans Affairs 56% 28% 16%  EPA 55% 31% 14%  Health & Human
Services 55% 30% 15%  FBI 52% 36% 12%  Department of
Transportation 52% 36% 12%  Department of
Homeland Security 51% 35% 13%  Department
of Justice 49% 41% 10%  CIA 46% 33% 21%  Department
of Education 45% 47% 8%  Federal Reserve 43% 37% 20%  IRS 42% 51% 7%

Note: Figures are rounded. No answer responses are not shown. Only the Department of Education and the IRS earned more unfavorable responses, and between them, only the IRS had a majority (51%) of unfavorable responses.There are some caveats to remember with this data. Firstly, tax collection is a less-friendly activity than say, maintaining picturesque parks. Secondly, the survey was conducted a month before taxes were typically due, a peak time for experiencing filing woes.Nevertheless, the IRS has come under fire in recent years. As per a New York Times article in 2019, eight years of budget cuts have stymied the agency’s ability to scrutinize tax filings from wealthier and more sophisticated filers.At the same time poorer Americans are facing increasing audits on wage subsidies available to low income workers. According to a Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse report, this subset of filers was audited five-and-a-half more times the average American.More By This Author:Visualizing Copper Production By Country
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