Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Christians remain by far the largest religious group in the United States, but the Christian share of the population has declined markedly. In the past seven years, the percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians has dropped from 78.4% to 70.6%. Once an overwhelmingly Protestant nation, the U.S. no longer has a Protestant majority. […]
39% of Americans identify as independents, more than they do as Democrats ( 32%) or as Republicans (23%). This is the highest percentage of independents in more than 75 years of public opinion polling.
Previous research has shown clear differences in the religious identity, beliefs and practices of people from different demographic groups. Young adults tend to be less religiously affiliated than older people. Women tend to be more religiously affiliated than men. There are far more Catholics among Latinos than among people from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. […]
Hispanic immigrants are less likely than U.S.-born Hispanics, whites and blacks to use public libraries. But Hispanic immigrants who have made their way to public libraries stand out as the most appreciative of what libraries have to offer.
At the center of the Pew Research Center’s mission is a commitment to measuring public attitudes on key issues and documenting differences in attitudes between demographic and political groups. An individual’s age is one of the most common predictors of differences in attitudes and behaviors. On issues ranging from foreign affairs to social policy, age […]
The bulk of the analysis in this report stems from a general public survey conducted by telephone with a national sample of adults (18 years of age or older) living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The results are based on 2,002 interviews (801 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone […]