How do Americans View Government Workers?

Negative stereotypes of government workers are widespread in media and public discourse, yet relatively little is known about the extent to which these stereotypes are held by the general American public, how they vary across groups, or how they relate to broader beliefs and interactions with government. This paper presents initial findings from Perceptions of Public Servants, an ongoing series of quarterly, nationally representative surveys and related survey experiments launched by The People Lab in December 2025 to track Americans' stereotypes about public sector employees across four dimensions: warmth, competence, integrity, and innovation. Across four studies (N = 3,765), we find that most Americans hold broadly favorable views of public servants' warmth, competence, and integrity — yet consistently rate them more negatively than private sector workers on the same dimensions. Stereotypes are highly polarized by party affiliation and vary by respondent characteristics and experiences, such as prior government work experience and interactions with the public sector. We also document large variations in stereotypes across specific occupations (e.g., police officers vs. librarians), as well as the labels used to describe government workers (e.g., public servants vs. bureaucrats). Importantly, stereotypes — particularly those about integrity — are also strong predictors of trust in government, as well as two consequential and timely outcomes: interest in public sector careers and beliefs about broader government efficiency. Taken together, these initial findings have implications for public sector recruitment, institutional communication, and efforts to rebuild trust in government