Economic Insecurity and Political Trust in the United States

Extant research demonstrates that citizens’ evaluations of national economic

performance play an important role in determining trust in politicians and

political institutions, whereas evaluations of their own economic situation

play a lesser or even negligible role. Utilizing American National Election

Studies data and more apposite measures of personal economic privation

during an age of globalization and de-industrialization, this article finds that

the extent to which citizens perceive themselves and their families to be

economically insecure has a statistically significant and substantial negative

effect on political trust. Indeed, the effect at least matches those of macroeconomic

evaluations and party identification. This article therefore adds

a new dimension to our understanding of the economy–trust nexus and

contributes to the small but growing body of scholarship on insecurity’s

effects on political behavior.