economy
November 18, 2020
Hopes and Challenges For Community and Civic Life: Perspectives From the Nation and Indiana
The coronavirus outbreak created tensions between urban Americans hit hard by the virus and small towns and rural communities. Despite these disparities, surveys find that, before COVID-19, Americans expressed many of the same ideas and priorities regarding their communities, revealing we may not be as divided as one might think. Continue Reading →
June 16, 2020
Many White Americans Are Ready to Reopen the Economy. Black Americans Aren’t.
Not all Americans are anxious for businesses to reopen. In fact, there is a fairly stark divide among white, black and Hispanic Americans on the subject. Continue Reading →
September 26, 2019
A loneliness epidemic? How marriage, religion, and mobility explain the generation gap in loneliness
Conventional wisdom holds that loneliness is a serious problem in America today. Yet data from the Survey on Community and Society (SCS) suggest that such characterizations of loneliness are overblown and possibly wrong. Continue Reading →
Generation Uncoupled
Generation Uncoupled: America's New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection
Buy NowSurvey Reports
Daniel A. Cox
July 23, 2026
A Digital Divide in American Adolescence: Gender, Class, and the New Teenage Experience
If teenage years once represented a time of rebellion, teenagers’ lives today are marked less by pushing boundaries and more by building their own. Many teenage experiences are less common than they once were—dating, working a part-time job, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol are less common experiences. The 2026 American Teenagers Survey from the Continue Reading →
Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields
April 27, 2026
Strangers Next Door: The Decline of Neighborhood Socializing and the Class Divide in Belonging
Acknowledgment The American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life is grateful to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for its generous support of this research. As Americans spend more of their time online, the neighborhood—once a primary physical location for real-world socialization—is playing less of a central role than ever before. Since Continue Reading →
In the News
August 13, 2026
America’s Loneliness Trap
August 6, 2026

