Majorities of Americans say the federal government has a responsibility to provide a wide array of support and services for the country – but there is more consensus about some domains than others.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand how Americans view the scope of the federal government’s responsibilities. For more than three decades, the Center has regularly conducted surveys exploring Americans’ attitudes about government.

For this analysis, we surveyed 3,589 adults from April 7 to April 13, 2025. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Interviews were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the survey methodology.