SUMMARY: The American religious landscape has changed dramatically over the past several decades. While regular church, synagogue and mosque attendance has been on the decline since the late 1970s, a Pew Research Center study this year has found that the biggest generational dropoff has occurred with millennials -- young adults born between 1981 and 1996. Special correspondent Cat Wise reports on why.
SUMMARY:Volunteers from some of the world’s biggest food producers, who decades ago took food-making from kitchen to the factory, are offering guidance to African entrepreneurs and helping nations become less dependent on imported food. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Kenya.
SUMMARY: While the U.S. is still an overwhelmingly Christian country, since 2007 there has been a notable drop in the number of Americans who call themselves such, and the number of people who don’t identify as any religion has risen dramatically. Jeffrey Brown talks to Alan Cooperman of the Pew Research Center, which conducted the latest survey, and Rev. Serene Jones of the Union Theological Seminary.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): The U.S. remains an overwhelmingly Christian country. That hasn’t changed, but a new survey shows a significant drop in the number of Americans who identify as Christian.
The survey was done by the Pew Research Center. It showed that, in 2007, 78 percent of Americans identified as Christian. By last year, the percentage had dropped to under 71 percent. Those years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of Americans who say they are religiously unaffiliated, from 16 to nearly 23 percent.
The largest drop was in mainline Protestant denominations, but the number of Catholics also fell. Several non-Christian religions, Islam and Hinduism, saw modest gains.
Alan Cooperman is here. She’s the director of religious research at Pew. Also with us is Reverend Serene Jones, president of the Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
And welcome to both of you.
And, Alan Cooperman, let me start with you.
One aspect of this that might surprise people is just how widespread this drop is. Did that strike you?
ALAN COOPERMAN, Pew Research Center: Absolutely, Jeff.
I mean, I think the important thing for people the realize is, this is really widespread, broad-based social change. It’s taking place not just in the big cities or in the Northeast. It’s taking place in every region of the country, including in the Bible Belt, among men and women, among blacks, Latinos and whites, among older people and younger people, and among people with college degrees and those with only high school degrees.
JEFFREY BROWN: And, Dr. Jones, what — does it jibe with what you see happening around you? Are you surprised at all?
REV. SERENE JONES, President, Union Theological Seminary: Yes, it’s surprising to see the statistics lay it out so clearly, but, on another level, it’s not surprising at all. It’s exactly what we all look around when what we see in New York City or — I’m from Oklahoma — when I walk through the fields of the small town I grew up in. It’s the reality of the U.S. we live in today.
SUMMARY: Americans born in the Millennial generation are more likely to say they're not racist and less likely to use racist expressions. But subconscious prejudices still persist. Hari Sreenivasan visits a psychology lab at New York University, where researchers test subjects’ instinct and decision-making to learn more about these implicit biases.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Research shows that millennials, young people between 18 and 35, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, compared to their parents, are more racially diverse and more accepting of other races.
Many were surprised and frankly upset by the University of Oklahoma students who were caught making racist chants on video.
Well, Hari Sreenivasan wanted to learn more about racial bias among millennials, and he brings us a story about his visit to a research lab focused on race.
His report is another installment in our series Race Today.
JONATHAN MENTOR: I believe that there is less racism in this particular generation.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Many millennials were shocked this month by the blatant racism shown in this viral video from the fraternity at the University of Oklahoma coming from people their own age.
SUMMER ANNE: In no way, shape or form should that video represent my generation as a whole. Part of my generation by no means is racist, by no means houses prejudices at — and at least, if they do, you know, carry stereotypes with them, are intelligent enough not to voice them to anybody.
SUMMARY: As Baby Boomers approach retirement, the Millennial generation is getting its foothold in the workforce, and facing financial challenges making it hard to save for later years. Judy Woodruff talks to Jen Mishory of Young Invincibles and David John of AARP about the different factors that have shaped each generation’s saving habits and how young Americans can meet their retirement goals.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):This year, millennials, the group roughly 18 to 34 years old, will overtake baby boomers as the largest living generation in the country. And even at the dawn of their careers, it turns out they are more worried about retirement than previous generations. And perhaps they should be.
Here to help fill in the picture, Jen Mishory. She is executive director of Young Invincibles. It’s a research and advocacy group for young adults. And David John, he’s a senior policy adviser with AARP. He also works on retirement issues at the Brookings Institution.
And we welcome both of you to the NewsHour.
DAVID JOHN, AARP: Thank you.
JEN MISHORY, Young Invincibles: Thanks so much for having us.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So we know today the average retirement age for men is 64. For women, it’s 62. And we also know that studies are showing that most millennials expect to retire, they say, by age 65, but they plan to keep on working while they’re in retirement.
Jen Mishory, how much are they thinking about retirement, this generation?
JEN MISHORY: Yes, absolutely.
Young people are thinking about retirement today. When young people, for example, have access to a retirement account, they are actually saving at relatively consistent rates. The problem is we’re actually not seeing young people accessing things like retirement accounts at the same rate.
So only about half of workers have access to that kind of traditional retirement account. Young people, 25 percent of young people are part-time workers, so you’re seeing just fewer and fewer young workers having access to those kinds of mechanisms to actually save and at the same time struggling with things like student debt, struggling coming out of this recession.
So we’re looking at a problem also around wealth accumulation.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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