WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ religious preferences have generally held steady in the past five years, after a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation and concurrent declines in Protestant and Catholic identification over the prior two decades. In 2024, 45% of Americans identified as Protestant or nondenominational Christian, 21% as Catholic and 10% as another religion, with 22% not identifying with any religion. Those figures are each within one percentage point of their 2018-2020 levels.
These results are based on annual aggregates of 优蜜传媒Poll data on Americans’ religious preferences. In 2024, 优蜜传媒interviewed more than 12,000 U.S. adults who were asked about their religious preference.
In 2000, the majority of Americans, 57%, identified as Protestant or nondenominational Christian, 12 percentage points higher than today. That year, 25% said they were Catholic, four points above the current figure. Meanwhile, 8% had no religious preference in 2000, compared with 22% today.
Combined data from the past five years provides more precise estimates of the share of Americans identifying with smaller U.S. religious groups. These data show that 2.2% of U.S. adults identify as Jewish, 1.5% as Latter-Day Saints or Mormon, and less than 1% each as Muslim, Buddhist, Orthodox Christian or Hindu. Six percent of respondents gave a response that does not mention a specific religion (e.g., “spiritual”) or did not answer the question.
Overall, 69% of Americans identify with a Christian religion and 4% with a non-Christian religion.
Younger Adults Leading Long-Term Shift Away From Formal Religious Affiliation
Religious preferences are starkly different between younger and older Americans. More than three in 10 younger adults — those in Generation Z (aged 18 to 27 in 2024) and millennials (aged 28 to 43 in 2024) — have no religious preference, compared with about one in eight baby boomers and fewer than one in 10 of those in the Silent Generation (who were aged 79 or older in 2024). In fact, among young adults, religious “nones” rival Protestants as the largest religious subgroup.
In older generations — Generation X and above — more than seven in 10 identify with a Christian religion, predominantly Protestantism or Catholicism. In Generation Z and the millennial generation, the percentage affiliating with a Christian religion drops below 60%, to 54% and 58%, respectively. Each successive generation of U.S. adults has fewer Protestants and Catholics than the prior generation, with much greater differences for the larger Protestant group than for the smaller Catholic group.
While non-Christian religious affiliations are not common in any generation — ranging from 3% to 5% — younger Americans are more likely than older Americans to identify with a non-Christian religion. This is primarily because of differences in Muslim identification, as close to 2% of Gen Z adults and more than 1% of millennials are Muslim, compared with less than 1% in older generations.
The decline in religious affiliation in the U.S. over the past two decades is thus largely a result of generational change, as younger adults — who are much more likely to have no religious identity — have replaced older generations, which had relatively few unaffiliated members. However, population replacement does not entirely explain the decline in U.S. religiosity. Within each birth cohort, more adults over time have reported they have no religious identity.
For Generation X, baby boomers and the Silent Generation, the percentage with no religious preference has increased two or three percentage points in each of the past two decades (comparing the 2020-2024 time period with 2010-2014 and 2000-2004). In the millennial generation, the changes have been steeper, increasing eight points (from 16% to 24%) between 2000-2004 and 2010-2014 and another seven points (to 31%) over the past decade.
In older generations, the increased share of U.S. adults in each generation with no religious affiliation has been accompanied by a similar decline in Protestant identification. For millennials, the total 15-point increase in no religious affiliation since the early 2000s has been met with roughly equal declines in Catholic and Protestant identification.
Implications
As Christian Americans prepare to celebrate Easter, Jewish Americans observe Passover and Muslim Americans have recently completed Ramadan, U.S. religious identification has stabilized after experiencing substantial change between 2000 and 2020. This change was largely driven by young Americans without a formal religious affiliation entering adulthood. That contrasts with older generations of U.S. adults, who overwhelmingly adhered to a Christian faith.
At the beginning of the 21st century, 84% of U.S. adults identified with a Christian religion, according to combined 2000-2004 优蜜传媒data. Two decades later, the figure is 69%. If substantial shares of adults in future U.S. generations continue to eschew religion, Christian religious identification will drop into the 50% range once the millennial generation becomes the oldest generation of Americans, if not sooner.
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