The National Conference on Citizenship conducts America’s Civic Health Index to inform citizens and policymakers about the state of our civil society and democracy every year, much as economic studies provide timely reports of growth, inflation, and unemployment. The NCoC’s 2006 report, Broken Engagement, used strictly comparable historical surveys to track changes in 40 indicators that we categorized in the following clusters:

1 Connecting with civic and religious groups

2 Trusting others

3 Connecting to others through family and friends

4 Giving and volunteering

5 Staying informed

6 Understanding politics & government

7 Participating in politics

8 Trusting and feeling connected to major institutions

9 Expressing political views


Since that report, the NCoC has been working to embed civic indicators in federal surveys and to develop new trend lines appropriate for an era of online civic engagement. The Bureau of the Census and the United States Department of Labor are also asking several additional questions this year about civic engagement on the annual Current Population Survey.

We do not recommend comparing the results of the 2008 Civic Health Index directly to recent surveys; the changes we find in indicators of civic engagement are small and more likely the effects of our new and improved methodology than of actual shifts in public behavior.25 However, the 2008 results are broadly consistent with other surveys conducted since 2004. Therefore, we are confident that the following generalizations remain true:

Levels of conventional community participation and connectedness (belonging to groups, attending meetings, working on community projects, and trusting other citizens) are low compared to 20 or 30 years ago.

People are more engaged in formal politics (voting, giving money to candidates, talking about the election) than they were in the 1990s, but such engagement is volatile and affected by major news events.

There are considerably more options for expressing political views than existed 30 years ago, and some (such as voting on online videos or commenting on blogs) are quite prevalent.