Public trust in the federal government is at an all-time low. Well, it was in 2023, when only 16 percent of Americans said they trusted the government “just about always or most of the time,” according to the Pew Research Center. That number inched up slightly to 22 percent in 2024, which is better, but still not great.
In 1958, when the National Election Study started measuring this question, about three-quarters of the population said they trusted the government. From my 2024 perspective, that sounds like a fairy tale.
So they’re saying that in 1958, most people thought the government was trustworthy? That the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasn’t suspicious after a natural disaster? That the government didn’t control the weather? That public sentiment wasn’t full of dark, shadowy cynicism?
What a dream!
One of the many reasons we don’t trust the government might have something to do with the idea of . . . actually working in it. Before I became a full-time comedian (and occasional writer in these pages), I worked for the government of the City of New York, in the office of the Campaign Finance Board. At the risk of painting too rosy a picture, to a person, the people who worked there were A) committed, B) tireless, C) nice, and D) competent. I didn’t love everyone, but I was shocked by the degree to which this city service was staffed by such caring people.
I didn’t last long because I went off to do something far more ridiculous with my life, but in the intervening years, I have listened to umpteen people complain about the government and government bureaucrats. Friends and neighbors regularly vilify public servants they have never met. Essentially, they were vilifying me and my committed colleagues. But why? I had met many of these people. They work hard in thankless jobs for lower pay only to be . . . vilified?
Public service is arguably the most substantive and personally fulfilling work a person could do. When I graduated from college, everyone wanted to work at Goldman Sachs. No shade on Goldman, I get it, there’s a lot of money to be made there. But what if working for the government carried the same cachet? What if college grads were schmoozing public servants at networking events for the chance to work at the Department of Transportation?
In October, I had the opportunity to interview Caitlin Lewis of Work for America on the TEDNext stage in Atlanta, Georgia. She made the point that “state and local governments employ one in eight working Americans—more than retail and manufacturing combined.” We never think of that scale!
“Yet,” she continued, “government doesn’t have a strategic people function; they don’t hire chief people officers, they don’t have recruitment teams, and they don’t market to potential employees. This must change if we want to recruit the next generation of public servants and ensure our communities are cared for.”
This should be obvious—Goldman recruits with abandon—but the government, a huge employer of necessary jobs throughout the country, does not have a formal recruitment apparatus.
Some cities, such as Long Beach, California, are tackling this head-on by launching programs like the Public Service Corps, which encourages college students to consider careers in the public sector. Other cities have created robust internship and apprentice programs.
Lewis joked that we should “ban the term ‘bureaucrat.’ ” She’s right. Even as an intern on Capitol Hill, I’d see legislative aides put in crazy hours to get the work done. These folks are not lazy bureaucrats cashing in paychecks. How did that imagery ever become popularized? They are people who lose sleep over every bill and eat lunch at their desk. If anything, they should be paid more so that more people will be drawn to the jobs that make our country run.
Government is not made up of shadowy forces; it’s made up of your neighbors, and it’s our responsibility to make sure we all see that. Let’s make the idea of public service sexy again.