WASHINGTON (RNS) — Economic recession has not led to increased attendance at U.S. houses of worship, according to Gallup pollsters.
Despite anecdotal evidence cited in high-profile media outlets, Americans' worship patterns held steady in 2008, the Gallup Poll reported. Since mid-February, Gallup said, pollsters asked 1,000 adults a day how often they attend church, synagogue or mosque.
About 42 percent have said they go weekly or almost weekly, with no increase in September through December, when the recession tightened its hold on the U.S. economy.
Gallup also said there has been no significant change in the percentage of Americans who say they attend church about once a month, seldom or never.
“The available data on self-reported church attendance among American adults do not appear — as of mid-December — to support the hypothesis that on a societywide basis, the current bad economic times have resulted in an increase in Americans' churchgoing behavior,” Gallup's report said.
Pollsters conduct about 30,000 interviews per month on church attendance, which results in a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point for the surveys.