Majorities of U.S. Adults Think Oil Companies and Pharmaceuticals Should Be More Regulated

The American public has clear ideas of which industries should have more government regulation. Majorities of U.S. adults think that two industries, among a list of 17, should be more regulated than they are now – oil companies (55%) and pharmaceuticals (51%). The percentage of adults who believe the oil industry should be more regulated has increased since last year when only 46 percent of the public thought this.

These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 1,833 U.S. adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive^® between October 11 and 17, 2005.

Other industries that the public thinks should have more regulation are health insurance companies (46%), electric and gas utilities (43%) and managed care companies, such as HMOs (43%). At the other end of the spectrum, computer companies are generally not considered by the public as needing more regulation. Only eight percent of adults think software companies need to have more regulation while seven percent believe hardware companies need to be more regulated. Even fewer adults (6%) think the supermarket industry needs more regulation. One-quarter (25%) of the public, however, believes none of the industries measured need to have more regulations imposed.

One thing to note is that with the exception of the oil industry, people are less likely than last year to think that these industries need more regulation. For example, both health insurance companies and the managed care industry saw a drop in their numbers, 10 and 12 percentage points, respectively, since February 2004. Other industries also saw drops during this time, but none as dramatic as these two.

While some industries receive better ratings for their honesty than others, there is no industry that has a majority of the public thinking it is honest and trustworthy. In fact, over one-third (37%) of adults believe that none of the 17 industries included in the survey are generally honest and trustworthy.

The industries most likely to be trusted are supermarkets (39%), hospitals (34%), and banks (34%). The industries least likely to be trusted are oil companies (3%), tobacco companies (4%), managed care companies (5%) and health insurance companies (9%). The supermarket industry has been trusted by the most number of people for three years now while oil, tobacco, managed care, and health insurance companies have been at the bottom of the list for the past two years.

"Which of these industries do you think should be more regulated by government – for example for health, safety or environmental reasons – than they are now?"

Base: All Adults

"Which of these industries do you think are generally honest and trustworthy – so that you normally believe a statement by a company in that industry?"

Base: All Adults

The Harris Poll^® was conducted online within the United States between October 11 and 17, 2005 among a nationwide cross section of 1,833 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

In theory, with probability samples of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points of what they would be if the entire U.S. adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (nonresponse), question wording and question order, and weighting. It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. This online sample is not a probability sample.

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Q700, Q705