There’s a large contrast between how Americans view small business versus big business in Gallup’s annual “confidence in institutions” list. But there is more to Americans’ attitudes toward and expectations of business, research with Bentley University finds. At the local level, businesses are crucial. Gallup’s partnership with the Detroit Regional Chamber sheds light on the role business can play in supporting cities and localities across the U.S. This week’s guests include:

• Kristjan Archer, senior communications consultant at Gallup
• Cynthia Clark, Poduska Professor of Governance at Bentley University
• Justin Lall, principal at Gallup
• Sandy Baruah, president and chief executive officer of the Detroit Regional Chamber

Gallup’s 2024 Global Safety Report finds that people’s trust in their local police is one of the keys to their overall perceptions of safety. In the U.S., police were the only institution that saw an increase in public confidence in 2024. But racial gaps on this measure persist -- and research from the Gallup Center on Black Voices provides greater context to Black Americans’ relationship with the police. This week’s guests include:

• Lydia Saad, Gallup director of U.S. Social Research
• Camille Lloyd, director of the Gallup Center on Black Voices
• Dr. Rashawn Ray, senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution
• Julie Ray, Gallup managing editor for World News
• Benedict Vigers, Gallup senior global news writer

Generation Z has a unique way of looking at the world, but also U.S. institutions. Gallup’s research with the Walton Family Foundation yields new insights into the young adults and children who are nearing adulthood -- about their confidence in institutions and their desires and needs as they come of age.

Though confidence in organized labor is stable, U.S. approval of labor unions -- one of Gallup’s oldest trends -- has seen a major rebound over the past 15 years. More recently, Gallup research has yielded new insights about the experiences of union members themselves amid this eventful period for the labor movement.     This week’s guests include: 

• Megan Brenan, Gallup Senior Editor
• Dr. Ben Wigert, Director of Research and Strategy, Workplace Management at Gallup
• Mike Ritz, Executive Director for Gallup's Federal Government Initiative
• Patrick Crowley, Secretary-Treasurer and incoming President for the Rhode Island AFL-CIO 

The media are among the institutions in which Gallup has documented the greatest loss in public confidence. The trend -- which predates the Watergate scandal -- paints a picture of an institution that was once highly revered and is now hardly trusted.

Is this crisis in confidence unique to the U.S.? What role is technology playing in the decline in confidence in the media? And could local media provide a glimmer of hope for the industry?

Read Gallup’s latest update on confidence in mass media: Media Confidence in U.S. Matches 2016 Record Low  

This week’s guests include:

• Dr. Sarah Fioroni, Senior Researcher at Gallup
• Delano Massey, Managing Editor of Axios Local
• Amy Mitchell, founding Executive Director of the Center for News, Technology & Innovation

It’s arguable that, of all the items in Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions survey, higher education is the institution on the list that has endured the greatest number of destabilizing shocks in recent years.

As a new school year has begun, confidence in higher education is at a low point -- but new data from Gallup and Lumina Foundation paint a more detailed picture of why this is. And what are experts in the field doing to restore confidence?

Read Gallup’s latest update on confidence in higher education: U.S. Confidence in Higher Education Now Closely Divided

Learn more about Gallup’s research with Lumina Foundation: ​Gallup-Lumina State of Higher Education

This week’s guests include:
Stephanie Marken, Senior Partner, Education Division at Gallup
Courtney Brown, Vice President of Impact and Planning at Lumina Foundation
Zach Hrynowski, Senior Research Consultant at Gallup
Lee Strang, Director of The University of Toledo Institute of Constitutional Thought and Leadership

The top 10 happiest countries in the world are largely the same as the top 10 recorded before the pandemic, but key shifts are taking place -- including Germany and the U.S. dropping out of the top 20 for the first time. The latest World Happiness Report sheds new light on how people’s life satisfaction ratings vary substantially between the world’s young and old. John Helliwell, professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia, and Lara Aknin, professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University, join the podcast to discuss key changes in India, a growing global inequality of happiness and how wellbeing can serve as a protective factor against dementia.

How do residents of member states of NATO view the alliance’s leadership? And what factors drive these views? Zacc Ritter, project director and advanced data analyst at Gallup, joins the podcast to discuss soft power, the crossroads NATO finds itself at, and a new analysis of attitudes of NATO member states.

The Gallup Center on Black Voices has collected more than 130,000 survey responses since it launched in 2020. Camille Lloyd, director of the Center, joins the podcast to discuss its recent findings across the Center’s six pillars of research. With the Black History Month 2024 theme of “African Americans and the Arts,” how many Americans are knowledgeable about Black cultural influences?

What makes for a flourishing life? A five-year longitudinal data collection and research collaboration measures global human flourishing across six areas: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and material and financial stability. Dr. Tyler J. VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology at Harvard University and director of the Human Flourishing Program, and Byron Johnson, director of the Institute for Studies of Religion and distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor University, join the podcast to discuss The Global Flourishing Study.

Historically, incumbent presidents with approval ratings of 50% or higher have won reelection, and presidents with approval ratings much lower than 50% have lost. What does this mean for Joe Biden -- and how does his rating stack up against previous incumbents who have run for reelection? Lydia Saad, Gallup’s director of U.S. social research, joins the podcast to discuss Americans’ views on whether Biden’s deserves to be reelected, as well as the favorable ratings of Biden and Donald Trump. She also offers a sneak peek at upcoming data on the reasons Americans give behind their approval and disapproval of Biden’s performance.