Note the numbers between 2010 and 2025 were in the 72% to 79% range if you read the article. So numbers have not actually increased that much.

2010 was right after the great recession, and after the people that caused it got bailed out by the government.

Think about it as 25% who disagree to only 11. Less than half of the people who thought corruption is not widespread still think so. Further, the US is now the #1 ranked country in corruption.

I think it's more useful to think about the closed operations on the 0% to 100% range. A change of ~75% to 89% does not seem like much, but "only an 18% increase" is not a closed operation, so it's not so meaningful. You'll see this in machine learning, e.g. 70% accuracy to 75% accuracy is not as impressive as 98% to 99%, despite having a larger change.