The Trust Divide in Southwestern Pennsylvania

In recent weeks, RealClearPennsylvania introduced the project to explore southwest Pennsylvania’s political and social culture, particularly as it relates to trust. As we’ve learned, trust isn’t just about confidence in government, though that is important. Trust is also about confidence in society, companies, and institutions. None of these groups are performing particularly well, though there is a marked improvement in trust for local institutions as opposed to national ones.

Rural/Suburban/Urban Splits

It’s a bit surprising, then, to observe that levels of trust don’t really vary between rural and urban parts of southwestern Pennsylvania. Whether we take a four-answer approach (“a great deal,” “a fair amount,” “not much,” or “none at all”) or consolidate the first two responses into “high trust” and the second two into “low trust”), there isn’t a statistically significant difference between rural, suburban, and urban Pennsylvania (though rural does have lower point estimates than either suburban or urban). The same is true for levels of trust in Pennsylvania and local communities.

When it comes to trust for specific institutions, however, differences do emerge. Rural Pennsylvania has significantly higher levels of trust in the military (46.2% reporting a “great deal of trust”) than urban Pennsylvania (35.2%). Meanwhile, rural Pennsylvania has higher levels of trust in ICE and immigration enforcement (28.2% to compared to urban Pennsylvania’s 20.2%).

Scientists were particularly polarizing, with 18.5% or rural residents ascribing a “great deal of trust” to the group, compared to 41.7% of urban residents and 30.1% of suburbanites. If we combine “a great deal” and “a fair amount,” there is no statistically significant difference for rural residents or suburbanites (70.2% and 72.9%, respectively), but urban residents are higher (85.4%). Likewise, urban residents show a much higher degree of trust in teachers (65.7% combined) than do suburbanites (51.9%) or rural residents (54.7%). Unsurprisingly, professors fare poorly in suburban and rural counties (54.6% and 55.7%) compared to 71.4% in urban counties. This is also true for the national news and “journalists” as a class, but the differences are no longer statistically significant for local news.

Other institutions are not as divisive; the federal government is held in more-or-less equal disdain by all regional types (about a third have “a great deal” or “some” trust); all three likewise split roughly evenly on community leaders and Pennsylvania state officials.

All three regions had roughly the same sources for news: national news, followed by social media, though all three regions likewise – consistent with their low opinion of journalists – reported low degrees of trust in their source.

On healthcare, an overwhelming majority of respondents in all three regions reported “excellent” or “good” health care; supermajorities likewise found that access was “somewhat easy” or “very easy,” with no statistically significant differences between regions (somewhat to our surprise). Roughly four in five residents in each region reported that lack of transportation hadn’t interfered with their ability to gain access to health care, while 70%+ of respondents in all three regions were either “very” or “somewhat” confident that they or a close friend would be able to access health care if they needed it. Rural residents were more likely (32.2%) to say that their communities didn’t have enough hospitals when compared to urban (16.4%) or suburban (23.4%) residents, but overall, respondents seemed satisfied. Lawrence was the only county where a majority of respondents said that they did not have enough hospitals, but the confidence interval is quite wide (36.6%, 71.8%).

Age Differences

Region showed some moderate, though important, differences. Age, however, showed chasms. In trust in the U.S., Gen X (and Xennials) continues with the cynicism. Those 40-49 years old split evenly on whether they trusted people throughout the United States. The highest level of trust by far went to respondents over the age of 70, with 70.9% expressing high levels of trust in people in the U.S. The same trend held for trust in Pennsylvanians and trust in the local community, with 70-year-olds holding statistically significant higher levels of trust than 40 to 49-year-old respondents.

Across almost all of the institutions we measured, older respondents had the highest degrees of trust, whether left-coded or right-coded, including scientists. The only exceptions were “professors,” where there was a clear break between under- and over-50-year-olds and journalists; older residents net-disapproved of them, while trust among 18-29 year olds was surprisingly high (55%). Older respondents were also quite happy with their health care (94.5% said “excellent” or “good”), while 30–39-year-olds were the least satisfied (still, 70% said “excellent” or “good”).

At the same time, older residents felt more connected to their communities, with 48% of young respondents feeling “not too” or “not” connected, compared with less than a third of 70+ residents. Some 85% of older respondents knew their neighbors’ names, compared with 2/3 of 18 to 29-year-olds. Youth, in particular, seem dissatisfied with rural life; two in three respondents aged 18-39 were “very likely.” Young urban residents were also highly transient, with young suburbanites being the most likely to stay put.

Overall, we can see a picture emerge where residents of southwestern Pennsylvania are mostly content with their personal lives, though older residents seem more so. However, the residents still have low degrees of trust, particularly young residents. In the next installment, we will explore the politics of the region, before moving on to a more technical piece to conclude.

Sean Trende is senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics. He is a co-author of the 2014 Almanac of American Politics and author of The Lost Majority. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @SeanTrende.