Americans are Turning Inward and Cutting Back Civic Engagement in Tough Economic Times. In our survey:

72% of respondents said they had cut back on the time they had spent volunteering, participating in groups, and doing the other civic activities included in the Civic Health Index (see the appendix for the full list). This does not mean that 72% have stopped participating, only that they say they are participating less.4
66% said that people are responding to the current economic downturn by looking out for themselves, while only 19% said people around them are responding to the recession by helping each other more.
14% thought that people wish they could do more but cannot find a way.
7% Just 7% felt that traditions of service from earlier times are being revived.

With news about budget and job cuts everywhere, one of the reasons for a decline in engagement—or perceived decline— could be a reduction in disposable income and time. Another reason could be budget problems in the civic infrastructure. Nonprofit organizations might, for instance, have had to lay off people who coordinated volunteering opportunities. The same thing may be happening in schools. Thirty-two percent of the sample said they knew about budget cuts in local schools (as did 40% of households with any child under 18). This may mean budget cuts in various civic- and service-related activities such as unpaid internships, events that need volunteers, and community newsletters that advertise events. In fact::

32% of the whole sample reports their local schools have cut staff and budget; just 1.9% report increases.
18% of our sample say they serve on a nonprofit board or committee that has a budget. Of those, 32% have cut their budget and 15% have increased it.
5% Of this group less than 5% say their organization has received stimulus funding from the federal government.

NCoC’s America’s Civic Health Index is composed of some forty indicators (listed in the appendix), and civic health has consistently risen when unemployment has been high.12 Perhaps people generally increase their civic engagement when economic problems mount—not only by helping other citizens, but also by becoming more politically active and more attuned to news, as reflected in other measures of the Civic Health Index. On the basis of that relationship, we might have predicted that civic engagement would rise in the current economic climate.

There was an exception, however: the severe recession of 1981-1983, when unemployment reached double digits. In that period, the Civic Health Index fell significantly. Meeting attendance, religious attendance, and volunteering were some of the components that fell in that period and pushed the Index down. It is possible that we are seeing an analogous civic decline in the current recession.

In severe recessions, there could be a kind of threshold effect: growing need usually encourages more engagement, but not when economic pressures on individuals and organizations become too great and people have to turn inward. Unemployment would only be one aspect of this problem; another aspect would be funding cuts in nonprofit organizations and agencies that provide opportunities for civic engagement. Civil society in contemporary America revolves around programs with budgets, funders, and paid staff; it is therefore vulnerable to cuts.

Although we do not yet have hard data to gauge national trends in the nonprofit sector during this recession, anecdotal evidence suggests a somewhat paradoxical situation. On one hand, there is an increase in the number of people who are available and willing to volunteer their time; but on the other, there is nowhere for them to go. There are laid-off workers who are willing to volunteer substantial amount of time as unpaid interns to keep up their skills and open up networking opportunities.13 In fact, Volunteer.org has reported a 30% increase in the number of visitors this year, and Big Brothers Big Brothers of Philadelphia experienced a 25% increase in the number of inquiries about becoming a mentor.14 Some Americans are willing to spend more hours volunteering because they cannot give cash.15 On the other hand, the government/nonprofit sector has seen the worst job cuts among all sectors and many are unable to take advantage of the willing volunteers. Lay-offs appear to be happening most significantly in smaller nonprofits that rely on private donors and small grants, but are also occurring in large agencies.16 Last winter, a survey of employers conducted by National Association of College and Employers suggested that employers planned on reducing the number of internships by nearly 21%.17 In the Civic Health Index, states that had the highest unemployment rates had lower volunteering rates than states that had lower unemployment rates.18

It is important to note that we asked about changes in civic engagement, overall. Certain forms of engagement, such as volunteering, could remain stable—especially given recent federal efforts to promote volunteer service—while other ways of engaging fall. That would be consistent with an impression that people are doing less overall. We will know more when the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics report the results of the Volunteering Survey of the United States next year.