alt Hacker NewsIt really depends on the type of trust you're talking about. You're right that in many places in the US, people generally act honestly. But that's not always true -- porch pirates are still a huge problem in cities, for example.
Policy-wise, I would not describe the US as "high trust" relative to the rest of the first world. Virtually all of our non-senior welfare programs are means-tested or require some proof of virtue (e.g. "I am actively looking for a job" to collect unemployment insurance), meaning that society broadly does not "trust" people to collect benefits honestly unless they're seniors.
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> But that's not always true -- porch pirates are still a huge problem in cities, for example.
I mean, a huge problem in suburbs and more quiet rural areas too, where porch pirates might in theory stand out more, but also have a lot less through traffic to observe their efforts.
We can look this up empirically: https://ourworldindata.org/trust. It shows US is a medium-high trust society; lower than parts of Europe, and lower than China (assuming people answered honestly there!) but higher than most of Africa, South America and Asia.