According to a new Gallup poll released Friday, the percentage of Americans who believe in God has dropped to its lowest level in nearly 80 years.
The Values and Beliefs study, which was conducted from May 2 to 22, found that 81 percent of Americans believe in God. This is down six percentage points from the 2017 poll, when 87 percent of respondents indicated they believed in God. Gallup’s trend shows that this year’s percentage is the lowest since the organization began asking the topic in 1944.
According to this year’s poll, 17% of Americans say do not believe in God.
In 1944, 1947, and 1950, 98% of respondents said they believed in God. In each subsequent decade, this percentage remained roughly the same. When Gallup asked this question nearly five decades later, in 2011, 92% of Americans said they believed in God.
A follow-up survey in 2013 showed that faith in God had dropped from 90% to 87%, about the same level as three successive upgrades between 2014 and 2017 before falling to 81% this year. The poll found that belief in God has fallen the most among young people and those on the political left (i.e., liberals and Democrats) in recent years.
Gallup said those groups fell by 10 or more percentage points compared with the 2022 average for the 2013-2017 poll. Most of the other key subgroups experienced at least modest declines, although little change occurred among conservatives and married adults, according to the poll. God, including liberals (62%), young people (68%) and Democrats (72%). Belief in God is highest among political conservatives and Republicans, which Gallup says reflects that religiosity is a major part of their lives.
Meanwhile, a shocking 50% of Americans say that the United States has poor moral values, while only 1% rate the country’s values as excellent. Gallup’s recent poll reveals that Americans’ views of the state of moral values in the United States are very negative and their expectations for the future are quite bleak.
A recent Gallup poll found that half of Americans believe that the country’s moral values are poor. This is a record high since Gallup began asking the question two decades ago. Only a small percentage of respondents thought that the U.S. had good moral values – 12%.
Although negative views of the nation’s moral values have been the norm throughout the past 20 years, the current poor rating is the highest on record by one percentage point.
