How Better Policies Can Help Build Trust

Evictions are one of the most traumatic events any family can experience. So in the early 2000s, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services made rental assistance and other resources available to tenants with children who were facing being put on the street. The support was meant to provide families a softer landing at a turbulent time.

If only they knew about it.

The availability of that potentially life-altering assistance often went unknown by those eligible for it, the resources hidden by two fundamental ways in which another branch of government, civil courts, usually work: Judges and clerks operate neutrally to maintain impartiality, and less than 10% of tenants facing eviction have legal representation to advocate in their interests. That meant that if families in need didn’t know to ask, they usually didn’t get the help.

It’s the kind of example that crystallizes why people lose confidence in their government and institutions. Fortunately, Michigan has since made some headway with the development of eviction diversion programs. But what happened in the state illustrates the challenges facing governments. Whether it’s dated policies that have yet to catch up with how people do business, poorly crafted policies that unintentionally limit access to services, or well-intended policies that falter in their implementation, gaps in services or outreach have the potential to undermine Americans’ trust that their government is there to serve them.

According to Pew Research Center, the percentage of people that say they trust the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time has not surpassed 30% since 2007. Gallup reports increasing declines in state and local governments as well. And whether it’s steady declines in trust among state and local public health agencies or all-time lows in confidence in police and state courts, few institutions are spared the negative vibes.

But while these numbers appear bleak, they can be turned around if government can be more effective and efficient. After all, nothing will restore trust more than if the public can see the government be more responsive to their needs and provide the results that improve their lives and help their communities thrive. 

We have seen poor public opinion of institutions and policies improve when government responds to the people. The Affordable Care Act, for instance, after a disastrous rollout in October of 2013, slowly improved in favorability over time as subsidies were provided and insurance coverage expanded. Americans reporting it had a positive effect on the nation eventually jumped from 24% to 44% between 2013 and 2017. 

The performance of government institutions is a critical component of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ approach to enhancing health outcomes for people in the U.S. and ensuring they can climb the economic ladder. We see a range of tangible (though often unheralded) opportunities to improve our institutions’ standing with the people they’re meant to serve—whether related to the legal labyrinth that is our civil legal system, the nation’s lack of attainable housing, or how we respond to people in a mental health crisis. And we’ve seen through our work across various domestic issues that instilling confidence in our institutions and its leaders means pursuing policies and practices that show foresight, are driven by data and research, and maximize those moments when people intersect with agencies and the courts.

Get ahead of the problem

Let’s start with money because most taxpayers do.

When the Great Recession struck in 2007, state capitals across the nation found themselves in a fiscal free fall. Sharp declines in tax revenues and increased demands in public services created a crisis for most state budgets, often resulting in one of two severe solutions: cuts to services people depended on or increases to taxes people couldn’t afford.

Americans should be able to rely on their government and its leaders to safeguard them from the potential tremors of the next big economic shock or downturn.

The scars left by the 2007 crash motivated states to make changes. Often with Pew’s help, many states enlisted a range of prudent practices aimed at fortifying their long-term outlook—from building substantial rainy day funds to paying down public pension liabilities.

By fiscal year 2019, states had built up significant budget stabilization funds, which allowed them to better weather the sharp economic contraction resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Utah is a good example. The state had been actively stress testing its budget for more than five years—assessing its ability to withstand various economic downturn scenarios. As a result, state leaders had developed sufficient budget reserves to cover most revenue shortfalls. While few foresaw the pandemic and the economic shock that accompanied it, Utah’s thoughtful planning meant resources would be available for its residents when they needed it most.

Despite that progress, many state policymakers still manage budgets for the short term, and as pandemic-era funding to states begins to dry up, they’re staring down the barrel of more short-term challenges and tough decisions. For example, federal funding that helped support child care providers during the pandemic expired last fall, triggering a series of closures, resignations, and cost hikes. States like Virginia, Indiana, and Connecticut are actively considering whether to intervene or risk the closure of as many as 70,000 programs that will affect more than 3 million children.

These and other pressing needs can dent the long-term fiscal outlook of states, which all face looming threats—from sudden shocks like a recession or natural disaster to pains caused by emerging technological and population trends—and in the process undermine the trust of constituents who expect government to be prepared.

Pew works with policymakers to reimagine their approach to fiscal management, reaching beyond the budget conditions of today to also plan for the risks and investment needs of tomorrow.

But planning for the future is never easy. It requires leaders to think beyond the immediate needs of the day and the ever-looming political cycle, which has generated extremely high turnover in recent years. In 2018, elections for governor led to 20 administrations changing hands. In 2022, nearly a third of the top leaders in the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers quit their posts. And 36 states will hold gubernatorial elections in 2026—16 of them open seats.

This high turnover makes maintaining future planning all the more difficult but all the more essential. To earn the public’s trust, leaders must put constituents first—for the long haul. And that also means showing foresight, rather than relying on old thinking.

Identify and rethink dated and arcane policies and approaches

Here’s a question that isn’t necessarily on the minds of most Americans: How many megabits per second (Mbps) constitutes quality upload and download speeds for internet service? The Federal Communications Commission definition had stood at 25 Mbps and 3 Mbps, respectively. Advocates have argued for 100 Mbps and 20 Mbps.

Most of us may not think about the actual speed of our internet service, but these definitions of what quality internet looks like matter. They serve as a baseline to determine which areas of the country are able to engage in a society that relies on high broadband speeds to do business, visit with doctors, and communicate with colleagues—and which ones can’t.

Americans should be able to trust that their government can keep pace with an increasingly digitized world and help ensure everyone can participate in it. Instead, for nearly a decade, the FCC steadfastly stuck with the speeds it established in 2015. Even nearly a year after the COVID-19 pandemic catapulted the essential need for affordable, high-speed broadband, the FCC declared the standing benchmarks were “an appropriate measure.” That resistance to change maintained poor connections—predominantly in rural and other underserved areas.

But things do change, and it often starts with states leading the way: Many states began charting their own course for delivering broadband access and what that meant. Minnesota, for example, established a goal of border-to-border broadband access at speeds of 100 Mbps and 20 Mbps by 2026, well above the FCC’s 2015 speeds.

In November of 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed into law and helped to create a new speed standard for broadband of 100/20 Mbps. That change in the definition of high-speed internet and new federal funding was instrumental in advancing the country’s connectivity, and an opportunity to help rural communities and underserved households across the U.S. improve their broadband infrastructure. In March, the FCC finally followed suit, changing its definition of broadband to match those higher download and upload speeds.

These types of goals can always hit snags, and fluctuating funding is a constant driver of whether they’re met. But avoiding policy rooted in old definitions and thinking is a start to ensuring new policy isn’t outdated as soon as it’s enacted. It also shows government and other leaders of our institutions can look for opportunities to do new things—at the local, state, and federal level.

Maximize opportunities to help when people intersect with our institutions

People engage with agencies, legislatures, and courts in a variety of instances, but those moments are typically transactional, limited, and miss chances to have a greater impact for the public. For instance, a visit to a hospital is typically pretty straightforward—the patient is admitted experiencing a symptom and hospital staff work to address the ailment. But hospital visits also offer a key opportunity: Research shows about a half of people who die by suicide saw a health care provider at least once in the month prior to their death, yet there are no firm protocols to identify patients experiencing suicidal thoughts and connect them with the services they need.

These deaths by suicide, a leading cause of death in the United States, not only underscore the urgency of the public health crisis, but the missed opportunities within our systems to save lives. Accredited hospitals are only required to screen patients for suicide risk if the primary reason for their visit is related to behavioral health. Hospitals also commonly don’t perform any of the recommended best practices to safely discharge a suicidal patient into continued care, even though research shows suicide rates are 200 times higher among people experiencing suicidality than the general public in the month following hospitalization.

Pew is working to address these admission and discharge issues, from encouraging the Joint Commission—an independent nonprofit organization that accredits more than 20,000 U.S. health care institutions—to update its requirements to identifying opportunities for state policies to more widely expand suicide screening and discharge protocols.

Our three branches of government—the executive branch, legislatures, and the courts—were never meant to be perfect.

The “more perfect union” our founders spoke of implied that our collective progress would never be complete. That particularly applies to the ability of our government and its leaders to help solve people’s problems and avoid creating new ones. Put another way: There will always be room for government to improve.

Some of our most defining moments as a nation have come in the form of landmark reforms to existing policies and the elimination of unnecessary barriers to Americans’ prosperity. Along the way, trust in government has and will continue to fluctuate. And peoples’ collective skepticism will always be there, challenging us to do better.

We can do better, and as we progress, maybe we can instill some renewed confidence in our institutions in the process.

Kil Huh is the senior vice president of government performance at The Pew Charitable Trusts.