Visualizing How Americans Feel About Various Federal Agencies

With the 2024 election season heating up, which should translate translate to our elected officials paying close attention to voter preferences, Americans have mixed feelings about various parts of the government.

To that end, Visual Capitalist‘s Pallavi Rao and Sam Parker have taken the results of a recent opinion poll conducted by the Pew Research Center between March 13-19, in which 10,701 adults were asked whether they felt favorably or unfavorably towards 16 different federal 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.

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.

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