By Seth D. Kaplan, Illustration: Bryce Wymer, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2023
Americans have much less social trust than they used to, scholarship and polls suggest. The public has precious little faith in everything from the federal government to organized religion to the media to people of divergent political sympathies. “Our [country’s] stock of social capital—the very fabric of our connections with each other—has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities,” concludes Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam in his 2000 book Bowling Alone.
What are some practical implications of low trust? Individuals will have less support when in need. They will find basic life steps, including finding and keeping a job, getting and staying married, maintaining health physically, and starting and running a business, prohibitively challenging. Such obstacles are more acute among the less educated, the less well off, and people of color. Only one-quarter of those earning more than $75,000, one-fifth of those with postgraduate degrees, and 31 percent of whites are “low trusters,” according to a 2019 Pew Research Center study. Low trusters tend to think other people can’t be trusted, look out only for themselves, and would try to take advantage of them if given the chance. By contrast, 45 percent of those earning under $30,000, 43 percent of those with only a high-school diploma or less, and 44 percent of Blacks and 46 percent of Hispanics have low social trust.
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