{"id":198620,"date":"2025-02-26T06:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T11:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/?p=198620"},"modified":"2026-06-10T09:03:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T13:03:49","slug":"prayer-and-other-religious-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2025\/02\/26\/prayer-and-other-religious-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"10. Prayer and other religious practices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fewer than half of Americans (44%) say they pray each day. This is a substantial decline from the first Religious Landscape Study (RLS) conducted in 2007, when 58% said they prayed at least once a day.[52. numoffset=”52″ The 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS) was conducted mainly online and on paper, whereas the previous landscape studies were conducted by telephone. This \u201cmode switch\u201d makes it complicated to make comparisons between results from the new survey and the previous studies. However, our analysis finds that the new survey\u2019s question about prayer frequency can be safely compared with the prior studies. The percentage of people who say they pray daily is somewhat higher in a companion bridge study we conducted by telephone than in the main RLS survey (by 3 percentage points), and the share of people who say they seldom or never pray is somewhat lower in the bridge study than in the main survey (by 4 points). However, previous Pew Research Center analysis<\/a> found little difference in answers to this question between a telephone survey and self-administered surveys. And both the main survey and the companion bridge study suggest that the share of Americans who pray daily has declined since 2014. For additional details, refer to Appendix A<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the decline occurred between 2015 and 2021<\/a>, a period in which the shares of U.S. adults who reported praying daily tumbled from 57% to 45%. Since 2021, the percentages who say they pray at least once a day have been relatively stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Line<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At least two factors help explain the long-term decline. First, the share of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated \u2013 those who answer a question about their religion by saying they are atheist, agnostic or \u201cnothing in particular\u201d \u2013 has increased by 6 percentage points since 2014. This group, sometimes called the \u201cnones,\u201d is less inclined than other Americans toward frequent prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the self-reported frequency of prayer has declined among U.S. adults in some of the largest religious groups, such as Catholics, evangelical Protestants and mainline Protestants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This chapter discusses the findings of the 2023-24 RLS about the religious practices of the U.S. public. Unlike the question about prayer, however, we do not have valid data on trends over time for most of these questions. Some were asked for the first time as part of the new RLS. Others cannot be compared with previous surveys because of changes in methodology or question wording. (Read Appendix A<\/a> for more details.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bar<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among the key findings on religious practices:<\/p>\n\n\n\n