It appears that the public is ready to forget the banks‘ role in the financial crisis.
U.S. banks are now viewed positively for the first time since 2007, an annual poll released by Gallup Friday showed.
The banking industry now has a net positive rating of 8 points, up from near -30 points in the depths of the recession. The real estate industry also has undergone a dramatic reversal in public perception, notching its first positive rating since the peak of the housing bubble in 2006.
The turnaround is remarkable for banks, which became disfavored after almost failing as an industry in 2008 and requiring bailouts from the Federal Reserve and from Congress in the form of TARP, the $700 billion program that proved to be a politically toxic vote.
Part of the banks’ improved image is that public approval has risen for everything as the economy has slowly improved over the past five years. For the 24 industries tracked by Gallup, the average net positive rating grew 18 points between 2013 and 2014.
One glaring exception is Congress. Public approval of Congress has been steadily declining since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In the most recent Gallup poll, only 13 percent of respondents said they approved of Congress, near the record low of 9 percent.
The telephone poll of 1,032 adults was conducted Aug. 7-10. The margin of error is 5 percentage points.
