Public satisfaction with government services hits highest mark in seven years, survey finds
As Washington prepares for a new administration — and a potentially dramatic reduction of the federal workforce — a new survey shows that the public is more satisfied now with U.S. government services than it’s been in years.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index study found that citizen satisfaction with federal government services ticked up 2.2% in 2024 to a score of 69.7 out of 100, the highest mark the survey has tracked since 2017.
“Citizens are the happiest they’ve been with federal government services since 2017 — and for good reason,” Forrest Morgeson, associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University and director of research Emeritus at the ACSI, said in a statement. “The efficiency and ease of government processes and the ease of accessing and clarity of information — two key satisfaction drivers — improve year over year, and customer service remains high at 78.”
The rise in citizen satisfaction with government services from 2023 to 2024 is part of the largest four-year gain — 9.9% — in the history of the survey, which began tracking that measure in 1999.
The 2024 survey, which was completed by 5,769 randomly selected respondents via email, specifically examined customer satisfaction with web services provided by 12 federal agencies that encompass high-impact service providers, or HISPs.
The Office of Personnel Management, which houses two HISPs in Federal Employment Services and Retirement Services, scored best among the agencies, notching a score of 76. Other high-ranking agencies include the Department of Homeland Security (74), the Department of Agriculture (73) and the Department of Commerce (72). No agency scored lower than 60.
The push for better government services was an early priority for the current administration, with President Joe Biden signing an executive order in December 2021 aimed at improving customer experiences and pledges to upgrade the designs of HISP websites.
Last fall, the Office of Management and Budget delivered long-awaited guidance to agencies on how they should be implementing the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, a 2018 law to modernize and standardize government websites.
