Gallup’s latest Honesty and Ethics Survey finds Americans’ trust in clergy continues to decline. Clerics join pharmacists, high school teachers, business executives, police officers, stockbrokers and telemarketers in “record low” ratings.
In 2025, 27% of U.S. adults surveyed say clergy members have high or very high levels of honesty and ethical standards. This is a three-point decline from the previous year. Nearly half (48%) of respondents say those standards are average and 18% rate their integrity and morality as low or very low.
Along party lines, there is a 15-percentage-point difference between persons who self-identify as Democrat or Republican and believe clergy’s honesty and ethics standards are high or very high (36%, Republican or Republican-leaning; 21%, Democrat or Democrat-leaning, respectively).
Men (30%) are more likely to rate the honesty and ethics of clerics as high compared to women (26%). European Americans (33%), those racialized as white, are more trusting of religious professionals than persons categorized as people of color (18%).
Down from 56% in the early 2000s to 27% in 2025, the 29-point decline in the honesty rating for clergy is the sharpest among the professions.
Nurses are still thought to espouse high ethics by most persons polled, receiving a high or very high rating from 75% of respondents. They have remained the most trusted group of professionals for two decades. Nurses are followed by military veterans (67%), medical doctors (57%) and pharmacists (53%), who also have high trust from the American public.
“Gallup has gauged the public’s views of the honesty and ethical standards of a variety of occupations since 1976,” Megan Brenan, a senior editor, wrote. “The list changes from year to year to allow for the measurement of a larger number of professions over time.”
Find the full report here.
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Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
