Corporations; Church Lowest on Confidence List According to Bay State Poll.

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. -- Overview of Bay State Poll Results from the Center of Public Opinion Research at Merrimack College:

--One in four (40.4%) state residents said they did not have much confidence in major corporations; a similar percentage (37.8%) said they lacked confidence in the church/organized religion.

--National government, the news media, and the entertainment industry were also near the bottom of the Bay State Poll's confidence rating list.

--A full one in four residents lacks confidence in the medical system

--Residents expressed substantially more confidence in local than national government with 75% v. 60% saying they had a great deal or some.

--Respondents expressed the most confidence in higher education.

--Older residents showed substantially less confidence in the national government than younger residents; party differences in confidence were strong across a variety of social institutions.

--Both a person's religious affiliation and the importance of religion in his or her life appeared related to confidence in organized religion.

These findings come from the Bay State Poll, a survey of Massachusetts's residents, conducted by the Center for Public Opinion Research at Merrimack College. Eight Hundred Eighty One (881) randomly selected state residents over the age of eighteen were interviewed by telephone February 25-March 8, 2006. The survey's margin of error is +/- 3.5%, although for sub-samples the margin for error is higher as noted. Detailed results and methodological information are available at www.merrimack.edu/polling.

Complete demographic breakdowns for confidence in social institutions are available in the Bay State Poll March 2006 Study Report available at www.merrimack.edu/polling.