Americans' most and least favored industries

Taylor OrthDirector of Survey Data Journalism
November 21, 2022, 3:23 PM GMT+0

A recent YouGov poll explores Americans' attitudes toward 39 industries. Industries involving food production and services — including the restaurant industry, the agriculture industry, and the dairy industry — are among the ones the most Americans view favorably. Viewed least favorably: the tobacco industry, the news media industry, and the cable industry.

While Democrats and Republicans are aligned in their views of many industries, other industries are highly polarizing. The news media, in particular, generally receives positive reviews from Democrats, but is by far the most disliked among Republicans, ranking 13 percentage points behind tobacco, the second least favored among Republicans. Other media-related industries — including entertainment, broadcasting, and cable — receive net positive reviews among Democrats (more view each one favorably than view it unfavorably) and net negative reviews among Republicans. Higher education and education services also get net positive ratings from Democrats but negative or neutral ones from Republicans.

Republicans, on the other hand, are far more likely than Democrats to feel positively toward industries involving blue-collar work, such as mining, oil and gas, trucking, construction, and manufacturing.

— Carl Bialik and Linley Sanders contributed to this article

This poll was conducted on November 7 - 9, 2022 among 1,000 U.S. adult citizens. Explore more on the methodology and data for this poll.

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