Traditional American Values on the Decline, Poll Finds: Patriotism, Faith, Having Children Hold Less Importance to American People; America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds: Patriotism, Religion and Hard Work Hold Less Importance

Traditional American values on the decline, poll finds: Patriotism, faith, having children hold less importance to American people:

A recent Wall Street Journal survey conducted with NORC at the University of Chicago found that long-held, traditional American values — including patriotism, religious faith, having children, and belonging to a community — are declining in importance for Americans.

The poll, released Monday, surveyed 1,019 people between March 1 and 13. It found that only 38% of Americans rate “patriotism” as “very important” to them, compared to 70% in 1998. Similarly, only 39% of U.S. citizens gave the same value of importance to religion, versus 62% in 1998.

Recently polled Americans also placed less importance on having children. Approximately 30% state that raising children was “very important” to them, compared to 59% 25 years ago.

The importance of community involvement for Americans dropped from 62% in 2019 to just 27% in the WSJ’s most recent poll.

Roughly 58% of those surveyed stated that tolerance is “very important” to them, versus 80% in 2019.

Contrarily, the only value that increased in importance for Americans was money — 43% rated it as “very important” while only 31% stated the same 25 years ago.

The poll found that those under 30 were less likely than those 65 and older to hold traditional American values. —>READ MORE HERE

America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds:

Patriotism, religion and hard work hold less importance

Patriotism, religious faith, having children and other priorities that helped define the national character for generations are receding in importance to Americans, a new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll finds

The survey, conducted with NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization, also finds the country sharply divided by political party over social trends such as the push for racial diversity in businesses and the use of gender-neutral pronouns.

Some 38% of respondents said patriotism was very important to them, and 39% said religion was very important. That was down sharply from when the Journal first asked the question in 1998, when 70% deemed patriotism to be very important, and 62% said so of religion.

The share of Americans who say that having children, involvement in their community and hard work are very important values has also fallen. Tolerance for others, deemed very important by 80% of Americans as recently as four years ago, has fallen to 58% since then.

Bill McInturff, a pollster who worked on a previous Journal survey that measured these attitudes along with NBC News, said that “these differences are so dramatic, it paints a new and surprising portrait of a changing America.’’ He surmised that “perhaps the toll of our political division, Covid and the lowest economic confidence in decades is having a startling effect on our core values.’’

A number of events have shaken and in some ways fractured the nation since the Journal first asked about unifying values, among them the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent economic downturn and the rise of former President Donald Trump.

The only priority the Journal tested that has grown in importance in the past quarter-century is money, which was cited as very important by 43% in the new survey, up from 31% in 1998.

Aside from money, all age groups, including seniors, attached far less importance to these priorities and values than when pollsters asked about them in 1998 and 2019. But younger Americans in particular place low importance on these values, many of which were central to the lives of their parents. —>READ MORE HERE

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