35% of Americans have moved on from their childhood religion

Explore Pew Research's 2025 Religious Landscape Study

The study—conducted in 2007, 2014, and 2023-24—surveys more than 35,000 Americans about their affiliations, beliefs, practices, and views on religion. Find data on religion broken down by all 50 states.

View the religious breakdown of the United States

This resource presents religious data by state and region, and nationwide. The primary religious group in the US is Christians, making up 62% of the adult population. Twenty-nine percent of US adults identify as religiously unaffiliated.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Most Americans support the separation of church and state

A 2021 Pew survey found that 55% of Americans strongly or moderately support the separation of church and state, while 14% favor integrating religion more into government.

More than half of American adults believe in the afterlife

It’s hard to find actual data regarding ghosts, but a survey conducted by Pew Research Group in 2023, revealed that around half of the US adult population believes ghosts can interact with the living, with most thinking that spirits can help rather than harm us.

Exploring a new generation's search for religion

Amid the historical trend toward secularization, young people still search for religion. Lamorna Ash wrote a book on this revival of interest in faith and spirituality, exploring the importance of community and identity in religious conversion. Listen to her experiences and investigations in this podcast.

30% of Americans make New Year's resolutions

The practice is more popular among younger people: In a Pew Research Center study, nearly half of people under 30 reported making at least one resolution. The majority of Americans (of all ages) who didn’t make resolutions said they simply don’t like the tradition.

17% of US adults said they had invested, traded, or used cryptocurrency in 2023

A survey from the Pew Research Center found that 63% of US adults have “little to no confidence that current ways to invest in, trade, or use cryptocurrencies are reliable and safe.”

Many religions have core majorities in certain countries

Though most religions have members across the world, they also have major concentrated populations in specific nations. For example, 95% of Hindus live in India, while 85% of the world's Jews live in Israel and the US.

Only 3% of workers 18 and older had a 25+ year tenure at their current job as of 2024

Surprisingly, this statistic hasn't changed significantly between 1996 and 2024, despite news about job hopping becoming more common in recent years.

Young voters are ditching political parties

While the silent generation and baby boomers have become less likely to identify as political independents as they have aged, generation X and millennials are maintaining high levels of independent identification.

Around 32% of American adults have at least one tattoo

Tattoos have waxed and waned in popularity over the centuries, depending upon the social standing of their wearers. Throughout US history, they were often considered taboo. However, growing acceptance of tattoos means they’re more visible in the public eye.

Divorces in the US have been steadily declining over the past few decades

Despite these recent declines, divorce rates in the US remain between 40% and 50%. But there’s some nuance to those numbers. For instance, having a college degree makes individuals 30% less likely to divorce than those without one. People who attend church are also less likely to divorce. And prenuptial agreements are considerably likely to prevent contentious court battles.

A poll from May 2025 found that a majority of Americans oppose ending birthright citizenship

As legal challenges progressed, a May 2025 NPR/Ipsos poll showed fewer than one-third of Americans supported eliminating birthright citizenship, despite broader public backing for other immigration restrictions.

1 in 5 Americans get local news from the radio

According to a 2023 Pew Research Center report, radio remains the second most popular medium for local news, remaining a vital source for local concerns. Audiences for national public radio, however, have declined, with listenership for NPR-affiliated stations down 10%.

As of 2022, Congress was more ideologically polarized than at any point in 50 years

Research from the Pew Research Center indicates that Democrat and Republican lawmakers have become more ideologically unified internally while moving further apart overall—with Republicans shifting to the right faster than Democrats have shifted to the left.

Renting versus owning a home, charted by age

One-third of American households are rented. The other two-thirds are owned or in the process of becoming owned, according to 2022 data from the American Community Survey. While most people rent in their younger years, homeownership rates tend to fluctuate based on age. To see home ownership and renter rates charted by age, check out these charts.

Catholic education has grown smaller in the 21st Century

Declining numbers of priests and nuns, who often worked in the schools for free, led schools to increase tuition, which inadvertently turned away the schools’ primary demographic: working-class immigrant families. At the same time, the sexual abuse scandals of the early 2000s left many others feeling like Catholic schools were dangerous.

Emotional relationships with God affect grief

A study published in 2020 examined how internal, emotional relationships with God—rather than external characteristics of one's religiosity like weekly workshop attendance or attire—affected grief and adjustment among bereaved parents.

Individuals typically spend less time with others as they get older

At younger ages, we spend much of our time with parents, siblings, and friends. Eventually, our lifestyle changes to include work, a spouse, and children of our own. In later life, children often move out, and spouses unfortunately pass away, leading to more time spent alone.

Kids often grow out of allergies to milk and eggs

Between 60% and 80% of kids with allergies to milk or eggs outgrow them by age 16. The immune system doesn’t always recognize and respond to baked forms of these allergens, so when kids eat muffins and other cooked food products, their immune system may become more habituated to them and overcome food sensitivities. Aging out of other allergies is less common.

Many early colonists came to America to escape religious persecution in Europe

Fleeing state-sponsored religious oppression in England and Europe, many early colonists sought freedom of conscience in the New World. Many—especially in New England—established their own religiously exclusive communities: They persecuted dissenters, expelled nonconformists, and enforced orthodoxy.

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

A growing number of Americans are leaving trust funds behind for their pets

A pet trust ensures that an animal receives financial support and care if its owner can no longer care for the pet. Some lucky dogs have inherited millions of dollars from their owners.

45% of Americans have no access to public transit

Most US transit was built on a monocentric design, funneling riders into a downtown center. But today's most common commute is from suburb to suburb, meaning the system is built for a work pattern that no longer exists.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

The nutrients vegetarians and vegans need to keep in mind

Although most older Americans still enjoy their steaks and chicken, an estimated 2.5 million of those ages 55 and older have abandoned red meat and poultry in favor of a predominantly plant-based diet. Some people decide to go vegetarian or vegan...

The average US adult spends roughly $195 on Easter

That's up from $189 in 2025 and the previous record of $192 in 2023. The vast majority of consumers intend to use it on candy (92%), followed by food (89%) and other gifts.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

Use this calculator to find the dollar value of your mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care for your children.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.