A newly released watchdog report ranking global corruption levels says the United States has slipped to its lowest placement since the tracking began in 2012.
Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) evaluates “how corrupt each country’s public sector is perceived to be, according to experts and businesspeople.”
According to its rankings, “a country’s score is the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of zero-100, where zero means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean.”
Canada had a score of 75 out of 100, while the U.S. scored 64, placing lower on the scale measuring corruption than Canada and other western democracies like New Zealand (81), the United Kingdom (70), France (66) and Sweden (80), and sustaining the U.S.’s “downward slide to its lowest-ever score.”
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The U.S. is now tied with the Bahamas in the scoring.
“Although 2025 developments are not yet fully reflected, actions targeting independent voices and undermining judicial independence raise serious concerns,” the report noted about the U.S.
The U.S. has been on a downward trend since 2017, when its most recent high score was 75.
Canada’s strongest ranking came in 2015 with an 83 score.
Each country’s score is a combination of at least three data sources drawn from 13 corruption surveys and assessments. These data sources are collected by a variety of institutions, including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
The CPI also reported that there is a “concerning picture of long-term decline in leadership to tackle corruption,” and that even “established democracies, like the U.S., U.K. and New Zealand, are experiencing a drop in performance,” while “the absence of bold leadership is leading to weaker standards and enforcement, lowering ambition on anti-corruption efforts around the world.”
The study revealed that “the global average has fallen to a new low of 42, while more than two-thirds of countries score below 50” and “corruption leads to under-funded hospitals, unbuilt flood defenses and blights the hopes and dreams of young people.”
South Sudan and Somalia are tied for the lowest ranking with a score of nine, while Venezuela is second last at 10.
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