SEC Popularity Tanks: Poll

By Ed Zwirn, Regulation Correspondent

By Ed Zwirn, Regulation Correspondent

Only 29 percent of adults who know what the Securities and Exchange Commission does rate the agency positively, down 42 percent from a year ago, according to a Harris poll.

The 42-point fall in the SEC's positive ratings is by a wide margin the biggest change in an agency's ratings since the question was first asked in 2000.

The finding is one of the results of a nationwide poll of 2,848 U.S. adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive between Jan. 12 and 19 in which they were asked the public to rate 15 of the most visible federal government agencies.

The agencies with the lowest positive ratings, other than the SEC, are the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA (44 percent), the Social Security Administration (44 percent), the IRS (49 percent), the FDA (54 percent) and the Transportation Security Administration (55 percent).

Other federal agencies seeing huge dips in their positive ratings since 2007 include the USDA, which fell 12 points from to 61 percent from 73 percent, and the National Institute of Health, down 10 points to 65 percent from 75 percent.

Most popular, according to the poll, is the U.S. Mint, one of the two agencies that are included in these questions for the first time, comes in at the top of this year's ratings, with fully 80 percent of those who understand what it does giving it a positive rating. The next most highly regarded agencies are the Centers for Disease Control or CDC, with a 76 percent positive rating, and the FBI (75 percent).

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Posted on Feb. 11, 2009