Most Americans Maintain Belief in God or Some Higher Power: Survey

People bow their heads in prayer during a rally on the National Mall near the Washington Monument on Sept. 12, 2010 in Washington, D.C. Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

The vast majority of Americans maintain a belief in God, although the percentage of those abandoning specific religions remains at a historic level, a new survey suggests.

The General Social Survey (GSS), a long-running national survey conducted by independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago, asked a number of wide-ranging questions of the American public. The latest 2022 GSS results, released on May 17, show that only 7 percent of the respondents said that they didn’t believe in God, while another 7 percent identified as agnostic.

At the same time, most respondents expressed at least some faith in God, including 50 percent who said they have no doubts about God’s existence, 16 percent who said they “believe in God but have doubts,” and 6 percent who said they “believe in God sometimes.”

In addition, the rate of respondents saying they believe in “some higher power” continued its gradual upward trajectory since 2000, reaching a new high of 14 percent. This pushed the overall percentage of Americans who believe in a higher power to 86 percent.

That percentage is consistent with responses to a question on how spiritual participants considered themselves to be. Overall, 84 percent of respondents identified as at least somewhat spiritual, while only 15 percent said they weren’t spiritual at all and 1 percent said they didn’t know.

Interestingly, the percentage of respondents describing themselves as “very spiritual” bounced back to 26 percent last year after taking a dip during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the increase, the figure is still lower than pre-pandemic levels.

In 2021, the survey found that 29 percent of respondents had no religion, a record high. Just 5 percent said the same back in 1972, when the survey was first administered.

According to NORC, sample sizes for each year’s survey vary from about 1,500 to about 4,000 adults, with margins of error ranging from plus or minus 2 percentage points to plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The most recent survey was conducted May 5 through Dec. 20, 2022, among 3,544 American adults.

People Fear Sharing Religious Views at Work

While a majority of Americans identify as believers or spiritual seekers, most of them fear that even respectfully expressing their beliefs at work could result in negative repercussions.

The Freedom at Work survey, conducted by polling company Ipsos on behalf of conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), found that many employees worry about workplace repercussions for expressing deeply held religious or political views not only at work, but also during non-working hours.

In the survey, released in March, 3 out of 5 respondents said it was “likely or somewhat likely” that respectfully expressing their religious or political views would lead to “negative consequences at work.”

On top of that, 1 in 4 respondents said they knew “someone who [had] experienced negative consequences for respectfully expressing their religious and political viewpoints.”

Other findings of the report suggested that 42 percent of potential job seekers said they were less likely to apply for work at a company that had a work culture that was hostile to their religious or political views, and that 66 percent said their company’s commitment to diversity should include respect for a wide range of religious and political beliefs in and out of the workplace.

“Employees shouldn’t fear that their religious or political views could cost them their job,” said Jeremy Tedesco, an ADF senior counsel. “Yet these survey results show that a significant number of employees do.”

The survey comes amid an ongoing legal battle over the firing of an evangelical Christian U.S. postal worker who refused to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays so that he could observe the Sabbath. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case this April, with justices weighing in on whether employers must accommodate employees’ religious needs in certain circumstances.

The Freedom at Work survey was conducted from Oct. 7 to Nov. 16, 2022, among approximately 3,000 employed American adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.