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Congress more trustworthy than car salesmen, barely

Results of a new poll taken by Gallup show only one in 10 Americans think members of Congress have high honesty and ethical standards.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

Results of a new poll taken by Gallup show only one in 10 Americans think members of Congress have high honesty and ethical standards.

Car salespeople are the only professionals who rank lower, with only 8% giving them a the "high" trustworthiness and ethics ranking. Congress got the most negative reaction, with more than 54% saying their honesty and ethics were low or very low.

Sadly, the 10% trustworthiness threshold is a step up for members of Congress, who saw their trustworthiness dip to 7% in 2011. That was their lowest ranking ever, while their peak year in the nearly 30 years of polling came in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. That year 25% of those polled said they were trustworthy.

Senators fared slightly better, with 14% ranking their honesty as high and only 49% ranking it low. State governors polled even higher and were deemed trustworthy by 20% of respondents.

Bankers and business executives saw a small uptick in honesty, reaching 21% and 28% respectively. Their honesty is slowly but surely rising from an all-time low of 19% following the 2008 economic meltdown.

Nurses topped the list with 85% calling them very trustworthy. Journalist ranked in the middle with 24%.