The U.S. score for societal resilience (the fourth level of the resilience index) stands in stark contrast to its strength on individual and household resilience. With a score of 47, it ranks 124th globally, in line with Mongolia, and almost 20 points behind the global average (65). This also represents a decline from 2021, when the U.S. scored 52 for societal resilience. Several factors lie behind this striking finding.
First is how Americans view their national institutions. Confidence in four U.S. institutions – the national government, military, judiciary, and honesty of elections – slipped in 2023 to a joint-record low since 2006. The U.S. now ranks behind all other G7 countries for people’s confidence in their institutions, having ranked top in 2006 when Gallup first started measuring them.
Second is the very high rates of self-reported experience of discrimination, at 55%. No other country in the world reports higher levels. The U.S. scores poorly on the experience of most forms of discrimination, ranking among the worst (either outright or tied with another country) in the world on discrimination by ethnicity/race/nationality (30% experienced), gender (30%), skin colour (27%) and disability (12%).
Third, 52% of Americans think their government doesn’t care about them ‘at all’, while just 7% think their government cares about them ‘a lot’. The combination of declining trust in institutions, high reported rates of many forms of discrimination, and widespread scepticism of the government’s care for its people, combine to leave the U.S. languishing near the bottom of the table globally for societal resilience.
In sum, the Resilience Index shows that while American people stand on solid ground for their perceived agency in the face of disaster as individuals, the society in which they live is built on far shakier foundations.
Find out more about resilience in countries around the world in the first of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll 2024 report, ‘Resilience in a Changing World’.