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Edelman’s newly released 2025 Trust Barometer finds that a declining sense of trust in some of the most basic institutions of society (government, business and the media) has led to an “age of grievance,” in which people are assuming an adversarial relationship toward those institutions.
More than six in ten (61 percent) of the more than 33,000 people across 28 countries who responded to the survey said that they hold either a moderate (41 percent) or high (20 percent) level of grievance against business, government and the rich.
Perhaps even more striking, four out of ten (40 percent) respondents said they approve of “hostile activism” to bring about change in institutions. That tendency was particularly pronounced for those between 18 and 34 (53 percent), while for those between 35 and 54 the number drops to 41 percent, and those 55 and over were at 26 percent.
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That hostile activism includes such acts as attacking people online (approved by 27 percent), intentionally spreading disinformation (25 percent), threatening or committing violence (23 percent) and damaging private or public property (23 percent).
Levels of dissatisfaction rose across a broad range of issues addressed by the survey, from a feeling that the wealthiest people do not carry their fair share of the world’s financial burdens, to difficulties in separating credible news and disinformation in media coverage, to a sense that civil discourse has broken down between people with differing political points of view.
As regards grievances specifically toward the wealthy, two-thirds (67 percent) of respondents said that “the wealthy don’t pay their fair share of taxes.” An almost equal number (65 percent) added that “the wealthy’s selfishness causes many of our problems.”
Those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder tended to be less trustful of social institutions than were their more well-to-do peers. For example, while high-income (top 25 percent) respondents had a trust level of 68 percent in business, low-income (bottom 25 percent) respondents only had a 52 percent trust level. Across the survey’s four categories (business, government, media, NGOs) there was a 13-point trust gap (61 percent vs. 48 percent) between the haves and the have-nots.
Respondents also voiced increasingly strong feelings that institutions are deliberately not telling them the truth. In 2021, 58 percent said they feared that government leaders were lying to them. This year, that number is up to 69 percent, an 11-percent jump. For business leaders, there was a rise from 56 to 69 percent and journalists and reporters saw a spike from 59 to 70 percent.
Along with that sense of grievance comes a rather bleak view of the future. Only 30 percent of US respondents said they have confidence in a better future. In other Western democracies, things are even worse, with France showing a miniscule nine percent confidence level and the UK coming in at 17 percent.
The Trust Barometer does outline some ways that institutions can work to raise their trust levels. For businesses, strategies include providing well-paying jobs in local communities and training or reskilling employees to be more competitive. Governments can earn legitimate authority through understanding “what people like me want and need.”
For the media, Edelman CEO Richard Edelman says, “Quality information is the lifeblood of trust. Well-informed societies are healthier, more competitive and resilient.”
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