An analysis of 40 indicators of civic health – including membership in civic groups, trust in other people, connecting to family and friends, staying informed, and trust in key institutions – shows a significant decline over the last 30 years. The 40 indicators have each declined by an average of seven percentage points: a substantial and troubling pattern that is only partly offset by less than a 3-point recovery since 1999. Each percentage point drop is a substantial change. For example, if the proportion of the population that gives a particular answer falls from 28% to 21%, that is a drop of seven percentage points (typical of our index components), but it represents a decline of one quarter.

An alternative version of the Index is worth considering. It drops three specific indicators that have im- proved recently but which might be less reliable than the rest:

▪ online “chat” (which some see as a shallower form of social and political engagement);

▪ the ability to place the political parties on an ideological spectrum (which may reflect increased political polarization rather than a rise in civic knowledge more generally); and

▪ people’s belief that they can understand government (which may reflect increased confidence rather than increased civic understanding).

We have retained those indicators in our analyses, but without these three measures, the Index shows steady worsening over the last three decades, down by almost 9 percentage points, without an improvement over the last five years (as the chart 2 depicts):