The Pew survey revels a 6.7% increase in the amount of Americans who do not affiliate with any religion, but having Islam as the fastest-growing religion, with a 0.5% growth.

By MICHELLE MALKA GROSSMAN

The Pew Research Center on Tuesday released its annual report on religion in the United States which showed that Hindus and Jews were the most highly-educated people in the country, as well as those with the highest incomes on average.

Young Jews rally in support of Israel in New York, July 20. – Photo: EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS

According to the 2014 US Religious Landscape Study, 59 percent of Jews in the US said they were college graduates, while 77% of Hindus also said they were holders of academic degrees. This contrasted with Americans adults as a whole, of whom 27% said they are college graduates.

The study also revealed that both Jews and Hindus in the US had the highest average household incomes. Of those surveyed, 36% of Hindus and 44% of Jews said their family’s annual income was above $100,000. For the public as a whole, 19% were able to say the same.

As far as size, the study showed that the Jewish population in the US increased from 1.7% of the population in 2007 to 1.9% in 2014. However, a percentage of change was not reported, since it was small enough to fall within the margin of error. Overall, non-Christian worshippers in the US increased 1.2%, going from 4.7% to 5.9% of the population in the span of seven years.

The fastest-growing single religion in the US, according to Pew, was Islam, with a 0.5% growth, and making up 0.9% of the US population. The second fastest-growing religion was Hinduism, which showed a 0.3% growth, making up 0.7% of the population as a whole. The category of “other faiths,” which included Native American religions, New Age religions and Unitarians, also grew by 0.3% since 2007, comprising 1.5% of the American population.

The amount of those surveyed who identified as Christians decreased by 7.8%, going from 78% of the population in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014.

The number of those unaffiliated with any faith, which included agnostics, atheists and those who identified as “nothing in particular,” rose by 6.7% since 2007, amounting to about 55.8 million people.

For the report, 35,071 Americans aged 18 and older were surveyed by telephone, both landline and mobile, between June 4 and September 30, 2014.

All numbers had a margin of error of 0.6 percentage points.

View original The Jerusalem Post publication at: http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Pew-Report-Jews-and-Hindus-are-the-most-highly-educated-in-the-US-402853