Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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A majority of Americans favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder, but support is at a 40-year low.
A solid majority of U.S. Catholics believe that Earth is warming. But climate change is a highly politicized issue that sharply divides American Catholics, like the U.S. public as a whole, mainly along political party lines.
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.
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.
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. […]