What was America's biggest problem in 2014?

Forget overseas turmoil, unemployment, and inequality - the most important problem America confronted in 2014 was apparently the government itself, according to survey data compiled throughout the year by Gallup.

The polling organization asked respondents on a monthly basis to name the most pressing concern facing the country. With 2014 in the rear-view mirror, Gallup looked back at the results and compiled a yearly average for each of the issues listed.

The most oft-cited concern: the government, Congress, and politicians, named by 18 percent of respondents as America's biggest problem in 2014.

The economy wasn't far behind, though--17 percent of Americans said the economy was the biggest concern facing America. Fifteen percent identified unemployment as the biggest problem, 10 percent named healthcare, eight percent said immigration, and six percent named the federal debt.

Some concerns that grabbed headlines throughout the year, from tensions between minority communities and police at home to the rise of extremist groups abroad, were nearly absent from the list. Only three percent of respondents, on average, named race relations as the country's biggest problem, though it's worth noting that number surged to 13 percent in December, amid protests sparked by recent police killings of unarmed black men. Only two percent named either crime/violence or the judicial system as the greatest problem facing the country. Ditto for wars, terrorism, and national security.

The results marked a turnabout from the last several years, when economic concerns dominated the list. In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, 40 percent of Americans named the economy as the biggest concern. By 2012, that number was still 31 percent. Just two years later, that number was nearly been cut in half to 17 percent, as unemployment fell under 6 percent, and the U.S. reported the strongest single quarter of growth in 11 years.

Gallup's Lydia Saad took a stab at explaining the relatively diffuse list of concerns.

"With unemployment and gas prices falling, the U.S. not being involved in any major wars and scaling back operations in Afghanistan, and no acts of domestic terrorism occurring, the factors that have caused Americans to converge on a single pressing concern in the past simply weren't present in 2014," she said. "Rather, as mentions of the economy and unemployment have dwindled since 2012, mentions of healthcare and government leadership have grown to join them, forming a set of comparably sized, moderate-level concerns that now define the public's view of what ails the nation."

Gallup's yearly averages were based on interviews with roughly 12,000 Americans over a 12-month period. Results based on the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent.