America’s Shifting Values: Patriotism & Religion Down, Money Up
Published 12 April 2023
2 min read
American values have seen significant shifts over the past 25 years, according to a new survey from the Wall Street Journal and NORC, a Chicago-based research organisation. The importance of patriotism and religion diminished, while money became more treasured. Here, we distil the key takeaways.
- Partisan & Generational Values Divide: The survey (unsurprisingly) shows a marked difference in top values between Democrats and Republicans, as well as under-30s and over-65s. Between these cohorts, patriotism and religion have the largest generational gaps of 36 and 24 percentage points, respectively. Views around the former draw the starkest partisan split, with 23% of Democrats saying being patriotic is “very important” to them, versus 59% of Republicans. Meanwhile, 27% of Democrats consider religion “very important”, as did 53% of Republicans.
- Social Justice Progress: Questions regarding inclusivity also elicited vastly different responses from Democrats and Republicans. The starkest rift surrounds transgender rights, which 75% of Republicans believe have gone too far, compared to 15% of Democrats. When it comes to promoting racial and ethnic diversity in schools, 55% of Republicans thought society had gone too far, versus 6% of Democrats.
- Economic Influence: Money is the only factor that has become more significant to respondents over the past 25 years. Notably, it’s also one of the surveyed values that saw the smallest partisan divide – 45% of both Democrats and Republicans consider it “very important”.
This could be due to rising economic anxiety – 80% of respondents say the US economy is in poor health, and 47% think the situation will deteriorate over the next year. And while 46% are mostly satisfied with their financial situation, 44% believe they’d struggle to increase their living standards.