How Americans Rate Federal Agencies

Gallup conducts a annual poll to find out which high-profile federal agencies and departments have the highest favorability scores with the U.S. public.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, in the latest installment, only four out of the agencies included were rated positively by at least 50 percent of respondents.

After being named the top-rated agency in 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021, the U.S. Postal Service once more came in at the top of the list as the most popular federal agency in 2022. Its rating rose to 60 percent from 57 percent in 2021, but came down from 74 percent in 2019. 13 percent rated the Postal Service as poor. No survey was carried out in 2020.

The top four is rounded off by NASA, the CIA and the FBI. The latter two were among the few agencies whose ratings could improve significantly from 2021, up 11 percentage points and six percentage points, respectively. As with the Postal Service, the ratings are lower than they were in 2019, however.

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With 42 percent of people saying the agency was doing a good or excellent job, the Department of Homeland Security came fifth in 2022, ahead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose rating dropped remarkably during the coronavirus pandemic – from 64 percent in 2019 to 41 percent in 2022. Yet, the CDC is not as loathed as some agencies Americans have long despised.

Of the ones published by Gallup, tax collector the Internal Revenue Service comes last at 34 percent approval, below the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency at 36 percent each.

The Department of Justice comes in at 35 percent, but no comparable 2021 figure exists.