Americans Want More Regulation for Banks: Harris Poll

The financial crisis, collapse, and “bail out” of huge financial institutions have jaded public attitudes to the banking sector. Every year The Harris Poll® asks a survey of all adult Americans which consists of a list of 17 major industries that should be “more regulated by government.” From 2003 to 2007 only 17% to 21% of adults thought banks should be more regulated. In this new survey this number has jumped to 36%, up 16 points from last year.

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll, a new nationwide survey of 2,303 U.S. adults, surveyed online between October 20 and 27, 2008 by Harris Interactive®.

Another question in this survey measures the industries that are thought to be “generally honest and trustworthy, so that you normally believe a statement by a company in that industry.” Here banks have taken a second hit, with a drop from 30% in 2007 to 21% this year, in those who say banks are generally honest and trustworthy.

The industries that the largest numbers of people believe should be “more regulated” are oil (53%), pharmaceuticals (49%), and health insurance companies (49%). The industries that the smallest number of people think should be more regulated are computer hardware (5%) and software (6%), supermarkets (6%), and online retailers (9%).

Other interesting results of this annual survey include:

Declines, mostly modest, in the number of people who think that most industries should be “more regulated,” with the biggest declines for packaged food companies (down from 30% to 20%), tobacco (down from 41% to 31%), airlines (down from 30% to 23%), managed care (down from 45% to 39%), electric and gas utilities (down from 41% to 34%), hospitals (down from 33% to 27%), and telephone companies (down from 25% to 19%).
While less than a third of all adults trust any of the 17 industries to be honest and trustworthy and 44% say they trust none of them, the two most trusted industries are hospitals (31%) and supermarkets (30%).
Hardly anyone trusts tobacco (2%), oil (4%), managed care (5%), health insurance (7%), life insurance (9%) and telephone companies (9%) to be honest and trustworthy.
With the exception of the lack of trust in banks, there are no significant changes in the number of adults who trust different industries.

These findings suggest several conclusions:

1. There is a tendency to want more regulation of industries that are not trusted. Oil companies, managed care, health insurance, life insurance and telephone companies are cases in point.

2. There are exceptions to this pattern. Tobacco companies are hardly trusted today, but they are currently not at the top of the list for more regulation, mainly because they are already strictly regulated.

3. Attitudes to specific industries are slow to change. Interestingly, given the meltdown of financial markets, people trust banks less and want them more regulated, however, what is surprising is that in spite of all that has happened, attitudes towards banks have not changed more dramatically. More people (albeit, fewer than last year) still trust banks more than they trust most other industries.

Methodology

This Harris Poll® was conducted online by Harris Interactive among a total of 2,303 adults October 20 and 27, 2008. Figures for age, sex, education, region and Internet usage were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online. Full data tables and methodology are available at www.harrisinteractive.com.

About Harris Interactive
Harris Interactive is a global leader in custom market research. With a long and rich history in multimodal research, powered by our science and technology, we assist clients in achieving business results. Harris Interactive serves clients globally through our North American, European and Asian offices and a network of independent market research firms. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.