Many Americans’ enthusiasm for religion, patriotism and having children has fallen in the past few years, according to a Wall Street Journal-NORC poll.
About 39% of the early March poll’s respondents said they view religion as very important, compared to 48% in 2019, the WSJ reported. Roughly 61% and 43% respectively placed high importance on patriotism and having children that year, sliding to just 38% and 30% this month.
“Perhaps the toll of our political division, Covid and the lowest economic confidence in decades is having a startling effect on our core values,” Public Opinion Strategies co-founding pollster Bill McInturff, who helped run an earlier poll on the issues, told the WSJ. The U.S. birthrate
rose by about 1% in 2021 amid the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the first such increase in seven years.
(RELATED: Nearly A Third Of Americans Rank Evangelicals As The Most Unfavorable Religion: POLL) 
Father Christoper Williams of the Basilica of San Albino prepares communion with Eucharistic Ministers during an outdoor mass on May 2, 2020 in Mesilla, New Mexico, amid the coronavirus pandemic. PAUL RATJE/AFP via Getty Images
Around 20% of individuals surveyed deemed religion somewhat important, the new poll shows, while about 35% and 36% respectively attached that level of importance to patriotism and having children. Approximately 47% identified as at least moderately religious, with 29% denying any religiosity at all.
Roughly 31% of Americans characterized money as highly important in 1998, surging to 41% in 2019 and 43% in 2023, while no other surveyed value saw enthusiasm increase across that entire time span, the WSJ reported. The segment of respondents assigning high importance to community involvement rose from 47% in 1998 to 62% in 2019, but dropped to 27% this year.
“These differences are so dramatic, it paints a new and surprising portrait of a changing America,” Public Opinion Strategies co-founding pollster McInturff told the WSJ.
The new poll surveyed 1,019 adults with a 4.1% margin of sampling error.
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