Home Pastors Articles for Pastors Half of Americans Rate Clergy Integrity and Honesty as "Very High"

Half of Americans Rate Clergy Integrity and Honesty as "Very High"

Gallup Polls annually ranks 22 professions in terms of how Americans rate their honesty and integrity. According to their poll, 52 percent of Americans ranked clergy with “very high” integrity and honesty standards; 33 percent rated clergy with “average” integrity and honesty with 9 percent rating their standards “very low.”

Professions with higher rankings included nurses (85 percent rated them with “very high” honesty and integrity), pharmacists (75 percent “very high”), medical doctors (70 percent), engineers (70 percent), dentists (62 percent), police officers (58 percent) and college professors (53 percent).

Positions that rated lower than clergy included psychiatrists, bankers, journalists, business executives, lawyers, members of Congress, and car salespeople.

Interestingly, state officials outperformed federal officials and nurses outperformed medical doctors in their honesty and integrity rankings.

The report commented, “These ratings technically measure Americans’ perceptions of the honesty and ethical standards of various professions, but most likely stand for an overall, broad assessment of the image of each profession tested. As such, the results continue to be bad news for politicians, who remain in the bottom half of the list, particularly including members of Congress — who this year are better than only car salespeople.”