In prestige poll, car salespeople have the cellar to themselves
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Well, that one brief shining moment for car salespeople is over. In Gallup's latest survey of the perceived honesty and ethical standards of professions, car salespeople are back at the bottom of the list -- all by themselves.
Last month survey respondents rated 22 professions on a five-point honesty and ethics scale ranging from "very high" to "very low." At the top end were nurses. Eighty-five percent of Americans rated nurses' ethics and honesty as very high or high, while only 8 percent rated car salespeople that way.
Since Gallup began this poll in 1976, car salespeople have always been in the cellar. But last year, for once, they had some company. They tied members of Congress with a 7 percent honesty rating.
But this year Congress -- even Congress -- outperformed the car salespeople and roared into sole possession of 21st place. The good news was that both groups managed higher honesty scores than the year before.
But better doesn't mean good.
"Car salespeople's perceived honesty has never climbed out of the single-digit range in the history of the list," according to Gallup.
The poll was based on telephone interviews conducted with a random sample of 1,015 Americans 18 and older.
