For years, more of our lives have been moving online: how we work, shop, bank, find information, entertain ourselves, and stay in touch. And then the pandemic accelerated that shift, disrupting many of the places, routines, and interactions that had long brought people together in person.

Many of these changes made life more convenient. They also made it possible to stay connected across distances in ways that are genuinely valuable. But convenience and connection are not the same thing. (Aside: We highly recommend watching Cord Jefferson speak on this at America 251; video here.)

So as part of our research on digital life, we wanted to understand the other side of that shift: not just how people feel about technology today, but what else they feel may have been lost as more of our lives and relationships moved online. And because the pandemic accelerated so many of those changes at once, we used it as a natural point of comparison, asking a new open-ended question: Is there anything about how people connected, communicated, or spent time together before the COVID pandemic that you miss today?

What We Miss

More than seven thousand people answered this question, and the first thing worth noting is that not everyone feels something has been lost. Thirty-nine percent said there was nothing in particular they missed or they weren’t sure, with responses ranging from a simple “no” to people saying life had largely returned to normal. Another 5% did not answer the question. One respondent saw the changes positively:

“No. It is pretty much like before covid with the added benefit of online options to stay connected.” - 68, Male, Democrat, Black Diamond, WA

But among those who did identify something they miss, the most common answer was also the simplest: being together in person. Twenty-two percent of all respondents talked about missing gatherings, family and friends, parties, physical closeness, or simply spending more time together. Put differently, among respondents who named a substantive thing they missed, nearly four in ten mentioned getting together in person.

The examples ranged from the significant to the wonderfully ordinary. People missed “social gatherings,” “getting together and having a BBQ,” “being closer to family,” “crowded concerts”, and “seeing friends more regularly”. One person wrote, “The desire to want to be around people.” Another said, “I miss how people used to plan time to physically meet up with people.”

That distinction—the desire to see people—is interesting. Respondents weren’t only saying there are fewer opportunities to gather. Some felt that the social expectation itself had changed. Here are two young adults on opposite sides of the country, in cities that are thought of as quite different, sharing this experience:

“The efforts and desire people had to see each other in general. It seems that it has diminished significantly.” - 24, Female, Los Angeles, CA

“It got quieter after Covid. No more family reunion and no more laughing and talking.” - 24, Male, Springdale, AR

The second major theme was not about where people interacted, but how they treated one another. Twelve percent described missing greater kindness, patience, openness, trust, or a general sense that people used to be friendlier and less guarded. “We were kinder to each other,” one person wrote. Another missed “the kindness and empathy of other people and the interactions with them.” Others simply said “trusting others,” “there was more kindness and compassion,” or “people were nicer and civil.”

Some of these responses went beyond manners. They described a change in people’s willingness to engage with one another at all. One respondent remembered “how open people were to talk to one another,” adding that now “it’s like no one talks or speaks up and would rather just not talk.” Others wrote:

“People didn’t hesitate to chat with you when out in public. Now everyone is on their phones and nobody wants to bother with strangers.” - 64, Female, Kenosha, WI

“It seemed before Covid people connected and weren’t hostile to each other. Post-Covid people don’t connect and nearly everyone is hostile about someone or something.” - 85, Male, Quincy, IL

That is a subtly different kind of loss. It isn’t the absence of close relationships. It is the disappearance of the weak ties and casual encounters that make a place feel social: talking to a stranger, chatting with a neighbor, recognizing someone at a store, making small talk without having planned to do so.

Technology was its own recurring theme. Eight percent explicitly said they miss talking face-to-face rather than through screens, including less reliance on phones, social media, texting, Zoom, and other forms of digital interaction. One person wrote, “I miss that a lot more of people interactions were in person, rather than online.” Another said simply: “Less phones, more face to face connection.”

Here, younger Americans stood out. Eleven percent of Gen Z adults mentioned face-to-face interaction rather than screens, compared with 7% among adults 46 and older. Among the youngest Gen Z adults, ages 18–23, that rose to 14%. In other words, the generation most associated with digital life was also among the most likely to explicitly say it missed communication that happened off-screen.

The responses were not uniformly anti-technology. What people seemed to object to was substitution. As one respondent explained, before COVID, people might connect online and then make plans to see one another; afterward, they felt “connection and communication primarily online” had increasingly replaced “daily interactions within the community.”

Another put the tradeoff particularly well:

“With technology we can just call each other, shoot a quick text or FaceTime but we don’t receive the same connection and bond we once did when we were connecting in person.” - 23, Female, Gainesville, FL

The physical places where connection happened mattered too. Younger adults again stood out: 12% of Gen Z mentioned this category, compared with just 6% of adults 61 and older. Among Gen Z ages 24–30, it was 13%. Across all generations, nine percent mentioned places being open, events, and travel—including restaurants, stores, malls, concerts, clubs, movies, and sporting events. Plus, one answer I did not expect to encounter quite so often: 24-hour stores with 365 people (3% of our data)—but extrapolates to roughly 8 million nationally—missing longer store hours, including 263 folks, specifically lamenting the loss of 24-hour or all-night businesses, and 151 respondents calling out Walmart by name.

“I definitely feel people connected easier in person before the pandemic. Restaurants/shopping centers still haven’t opened back up to previous hours. I miss 1am Walmart runs,” one person wrote. Another remembered, “24/7 Walmart lol I used to meet some cool people late at night.” Others missed late-night shopping with family or “midnight snack runs with friends.”

It sounds trivial until you think about what those places provided. A store open at 1 a.m., a mall, a diner, a neighborhood event, or somewhere inexpensive to wander isn’t just a business. It is somewhere people can be around other people without formally arranging to be around other people.

Smaller shares talked about no longer having the same freedom from illness fears, masks, or distancing (5%); spontaneity and a slower pace (4%); community and neighbors (2%); and school or work happening in person (2%).

These categories overlap, but people aren’t describing one missing behavior. They’re describing an ecosystem of connection: the desire to get together, places where gathering happens, spontaneous encounters, face-to-face conversation, trust between strangers, and enough openness to turn an interaction into a relationship.

One response captured almost all of it:

“Being able to spend time with friends and family, going out often, attend special occasions, go shopping, traveling. In truth, there are a lot of things I miss before that COVID pandemic, but I could never truly sum it up in a few words.” - 38, Female, Red Bluff, CA

And a few more quotes for good measure:

Final Thoughts

It would be easy to read these responses as simple nostalgia for life before 2020. I don’t think that is quite what they are telling us. Nearly four in ten respondents said there was nothing in particular they missed or they weren’t sure, and many of the changes that accelerated during COVID—from remote work to online communication—have made life easier and connection more accessible for millions of people.

But among those who do feel something has been lost, the answers extend well beyond screens. People miss seeing friends and family. They miss conversations that happen face-to-face. They miss strangers being more willing to talk to one another and people seeming kinder, more patient, and less guarded. They even miss the malls, restaurants, neighborhood events, late-night stores, and other ordinary places where social life happened without anyone explicitly planning for it.

Connection is not only a relationship between two people. It also depends on the conditions around them: places to gather, time to linger, opportunities to encounter strangers, norms that make conversation feel welcome, and enough trust to engage with someone you don’t already know. If people are missing the conditions that made being together easier, that raises a set of questions:

• What kinds of places and routines make casual connection possible, and are we losing too many of them?

• If people perceive one another as less open, trusting, or friendly, how does that change the way communities function?

• What would it mean to design neighborhoods, institutions, and civic life not simply around access and convenience, but around making it easier for people to be together?

We often talk about connection as though it is something individuals either have or don’t have. But these responses suggest that connection also has an infrastructure. It is built through people, certainly, but also through places, habits, expectations, and countless small encounters that make us feel part of the world around us.

Make room for each other.

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This research was supported by the Walton Family Foundation, which has funded Murmuration’s Gen Z research efforts since 2021. Learn more about our ongoing research partnership and findings on the youngest generation of voters here.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

This year, that opportunity extends well beyond a handful of high-profile races. Voters across the country will help determine control of Congress, elect governors and state legislators, choose attorneys general, judges, mayors, school board members, and local officials whose decisions shape daily life in tangible ways.

At a moment when Americans are questioning many of the institutions around them, we wanted to understand how they think about one of democracy’s most fundamental acts: voting. How many people believe their vote matters? More importantly, what helps people feel that their actions—including voting—can make a difference?

What Shapes Our Belief in Voting?

Nearly four in ten Americans (37%) believe their vote makes either a great deal or a lot of difference. Another 42% say it matters some. An uncomfortably high 18% say their vote makes no difference at all, while 3% are unsure.

So what distinguishes Americans who believe their vote matters from those who don’t?

The first factor is political identity. Strong Democrats and strong Republicans look remarkably alike. Only 8% of strong Democrats and 10% of strong Republicans say their vote makes no difference. Weak partisans fall somewhere in the middle, while Independents stand apart. One in four Independents (25%) say their vote makes no difference at all, more than double the rate among strong partisans.

The second factor is financial comfort. Over the past several months, we’ve written repeatedly about how financial comfort shapes Americans’ daily lives, explaining differences in stress, hope, belonging, trust, and life satisfaction. It emerges here as well.

Among Americans who describe themselves as financially prosperous or comfortable, only 12% say their vote makes no difference. Among those who are financially struggling, that figure more than doubles to 30%. Financial circumstances don’t just shape how people experience everyday life. They also appear to shape whether people believe they can influence the world around them.

These two patterns don’t exist independently. Among strong Democrats and strong Republicans, financial hardship changes relatively little. Whether they are financially comfortable or struggling, most continue to believe their vote has value. Among strong Democrats, the share saying their vote makes no difference rises from just 5% among the financially comfortable to 15% among those who are struggling. Among strong Republicans, it increases from 9% to 15%.

Independents tell a very different story. Even among financially comfortable Independents, 17% say their vote makes no difference—already higher than every group of strong partisans. Among those who are getting by, that rises to 25%. Among Independents who are financially struggling, more than four in ten (42%) believe their vote doesn’t matter at all. That’s a 25-point increase driven by financial circumstances alone.

A Broader Sense of Agency

Political identity and financial comfort help explain who believes voting matters. But both appear to reflect something even deeper: a person’s broader sense of agency.

Among Americans who say they have a great deal of control over the direction of their own life, only 12% believe their vote makes no difference. Among those who feel they have no control at all, that figure more than triples to 39%. The pattern becomes even more striking when we move beyond the individual and ask about communities. Among people who believe ordinary people can make a great deal of difference where they live, only 12% say their vote doesn’t matter. Among those who don’t think ordinary people can change much of anything locally, that rises to 55%.

That broader sense of agency also shapes how people think about change itself. When we asked Americans where real change comes from, those who believe their vote matters were most likely to say “ordinary people and local communities” (+9pp). Those who believe their vote doesn’t matter were most likely to point to “major crises or hard times” (+5pp). The distinction is about where people locate the source of change. One group sees change as something people build together. The other is more likely to see change as something imposed by circumstances beyond anyone’s control.

It also shapes how people choose to participate. Americans who believe their vote matters are much more likely to see voting as a meaningful civic act. Those who don’t believe their vote matters mostly favor helping someone directly instead, with nearly half saying the most meaningful thing they can do is help another person, while very few choose voting.

Final Thoughts

Belief that a vote matters appears to grow from the same conditions that shape so many other parts of civic life: feeling financially secure, feeling connected to something larger than yourself, and believing that your actions can change what happens around you.

That may also be the opportunity. If confidence in democracy reflects a broader sense of agency, then strengthening democracy isn’t only about Election Day. It’s about creating more opportunities for people to experience that their choices matter in their neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and communities.

A few questions:

• What are the earliest experiences that teach people their actions can make a difference, and are we creating enough of them?

• If financial comfort is so closely tied to political agency, what does that mean for how we think about strengthening civic life?

• How might our approach to democracy change if we focused as much on building agency between elections as we do on participation during them?

In that sense, confidence in voting may be less a cause of civic engagement than a consequence of it. The more people experience that they can shape the world around them, the more likely they are to believe that casting a ballot is another way to do the same.

Vote of confidence.

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Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Murmuration’s Chief Marketing and Operating Officer, Michael Slaby, sat down with Emma Lembke, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the LOG OFF Movement, Co-Founder of Design It For Us, and Director of Gen Z Advocacy at the Sustainable Media Center, for The Exchange, our interview series featuring influential thought leaders, organizers, advocates, and others who are shaping the future of civic life.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Michael Slaby: I am talking to you at a really interesting time for Murmuration, as we are publishing a new report in a couple of weeks on how Americans, including many young people, are rethinking technology, connection, and what they want to reclaim from digital life. So, I couldn’t be happier about getting to speak with you today. To kick us off, could you introduce yourself, share your work at the Sustainable Media Center, and tell us how the LOG OFF Movement came to be?

Emma Lembke: It is an honor and a pleasure to be in conversation with you. I’m genuinely very blown away by and inspired by the work that you all do to equip leaders and advocates like myself with the tools and services necessary to make meaningful change, which is what we all want and what we all deserve. I have dedicated the past six or so years of my life to helping empower younger generations to build a healthier relationship with their technology, specifically starting with social media, but now also encompassing AI.

The reason I got started in the tech advocacy space is largely due to my lived experience. I got social media when I was 12 years old. I was ironically one of the last in my friend group to join these platforms, specifically Instagram, and I remember seeing each one of my friends decrease the amount of time they were spending in communication and connection with me, and taking that time and energy and putting it towards taking pictures to post online, counting followers and likes, and posting at the right time. I eventually reached a breaking point in ninth grade, where I had the buzz of a notification and a Pavlovian response to grab for it. I finally asked, “What exactly am I doing? I value control. How am I giving so much of my control up to these apps? And why do I feel so bad?” That moment made me pause and reflect, and I decided to take more time to think and reflect upon my own usage so I could regain a healthy relationship with technology.

I deleted social media for a little bit, and what I discovered was that I had a ton of questions. I wanted to look up what online communities were available for young people who were annoyed or frustrated by social media, how social media impacts younger generations, and how a young person’s mental health is impacted by increased scrolling. I found a plethora of emerging research showing the negative side effects of using social media more, but I couldn’t find a community for young people. So, at the beginning of my senior year of high school, I wanted to create that community for young people to talk about ways to build healthier habits, find community with one another, and push for changes that we wanted to see in the online world. And that was called the LOG OFF Movement.

Michael Slaby: That experience of logging off before it became a movement came with a cost. When you remove yourself from social spaces, you’re also giving something up, because these tools work because you’re getting something—a relationship to be had, a space to be in, and greater connectivity.

I’m curious what you’re seeing in that movement, how you’re seeing young people seeking ways of building healthy relationships, using tools, demanding better agency, and becoming better, stronger users. Do you see young people making different design choices or different user choices, or finding spaces that are healthier?

Emma Lembke: When I started my advocacy at the end of high school, I was working with young people to help them develop a level of awareness. A lot of young people felt like they were a part of the system, a cog in the system, and they felt like the relationship they had was a bad one, and they wanted the tools to develop a better one. But they hadn’t really gotten to the point where they could articulate that.

In those six years, my advocacy has taken many twists and turns. I think there has been a major uprising, especially within Gen Z, of a newly developed sense of awareness. More people are feeling that they have permission to not only make changes, but to begin to develop those healthy relationships themselves. A lot of young people within my community have been very creative. Gen Z is such a scrappy generation, and young people are finding new and interesting ways to unplug. Whether that is developing a third space, putting more energy and effort into building in-person connections and prioritizing them, or playing around with downloading screen-time-blocking apps like Opal. I think that a healthier relationship with technology looks very, very different to every single user. It’s been very, very exciting from an advocacy perspective to see more voices enter the mix wanting to talk about building a healthy relationship and feeling empowered to do so.

Michael Slaby: Social pressure is real, and the emotional burden of losing connections if you leave social media can be especially significant for young people. You just mentioned third spaces, and your new “Forks Up, Phones Down” campaign takes a similarly simple approach: put the phone down and connect with the people around you, starting with a meal. It reminded me of something Amanda Litman shared with us recently—how impactful having people over for dinner was in building connection and community at a time when those things felt so far away. Why did you want to focus on something as ordinary as sharing a meal?

Emma Lembke: That question makes me really happy. When we came up with the idea for “Forks Up, Phones Down,” we really just wanted to connect with more people around building healthy relationships with technology. But it is very, very hard to come to a consensus around proper tech usage, so I told my team we needed to zoom in, avoid the ambiguity at the macro level, and focus on something so easy and actionable that every individual could take that step instantly. Building greater tech intentionality starts with one step at a time. One thing can compound and build upon another.

So we identified one super unifying and common frustration across generations: fubbing, the intentional act of not paying attention to someone when you’re with them, especially at the dinner table. I came up with the idea out of personal frustration and then went to every single person I knew and asked if they agreed it was a shared frustration. I think it was a great place to start, especially at a time when, for centuries, we’ve connected with one another at the dinner table. And the dinner table is a really simple way to nourish relationships built on trust, accountability, depth, and emotional support.

Michael Slaby: Logging off can seem like a later step in a process of first recognizing how these systems are designed to keep us engaged. Do you see that awareness becoming more of a default for young people, or is it still something they have to discover and learn for themselves?

Emma Lembke: I think it depends on the generation. And I want to make it abundantly clear that I’m not anti-technology. A lot of people hear about the log off movement, they hear about my work, and they think that I’m anti-technology. Absolutely not. I’m pro-tech intentionality. I’m focused on cultivating greater tech intentionality so that each individual can determine what a healthy relationship with technology means for them. One of my favorite researchers, Rachel Janfaza, always talks about Gen Z 1.0 and Gen Z 2.0, separated by COVID, which I think is a very important distinction as far as lived and educational experience of technology.

With Gen Z, I think there is an inherent understanding that there is an issue. Almost every young person I’ve talked to is at least somewhat aware that they probably shouldn’t be scrolling as much, or that social media could impact kids’ lives more than they want it to. I think that’s partly because we grew up alongside social media as it grew and expanded its reach. That experience has allowed us to cultivate a deeper understanding of it. Awareness is the first step, and tech intentionality is further along in the process, but it’s much easier for me to work with Gen Z to build those healthy relationships because I don’t have to do as much convincing.

Michael Slaby: At Murmuration, we do a lot of listening at scale, and what we hear from younger Americans is that they seem to have a healthy skepticism about digital tools and, more broadly, AI. You’ve talked about Gen Z. Gen Alpha (depending on how we draw the lines between generations) is now about to enter civic life, having grown up with AI. So, I’m curious, do you see differences in how those younger generations come into this conversation?

Emma Lembke: I think the issue area has shifted. For a lot of the Gen Alpha individuals I’ve talked to, their focus is much more expansive than just social media, because they have inherited a much more difficult technological world, and I think there is a healthy level of skepticism there. There’s an inherent understanding that older generations didn’t act productively—they failed Gen Z. They didn’t protect them from big tech and allowed them to be a guinea pig generation. We’re now seeing the negative ramifications, whether it’s the impact on our democratic systems, trust in institutions, our ability to access information, or our ability to connect with one another.

At the same time, I think Gen Z and Gen Alpha understand that there are obvious benefits to AI: connective, expressive, and exploratory capabilities. Unlike older generations, they don’t exist in this space of “let’s go back to the good old days” or “let’s ban all social media.” They understand that the genie’s out of the bottle and lean into the realism in a way that only they can. I feel bad for Gen Z because we let them down with social media, but Gen Alpha we really let down—we not only didn’t address social media, but we’ve also allowed the beginning of chatbots and LLMs to impact them in a whole new set of ways. But I do think Gen Alpha will be the more capable generation at understanding how to move forward.

Michael Slaby: There is still agency here. Rather than walking away from these spaces or looking nostalgically toward a past that didn’t really exist, how can we be more explicit about what we want from technology and fight to make these spaces healthier? As AI becomes more embedded in our lives and social media continues to evolve, what’s giving you hope about what’s possible?

Emma Lembke: I’m a very hopeful person, which I think a lot of people would not expect because tech advocacy can often feel like a David and Goliath situation, with many setbacks. And the current state of AI does not necessarily help with that hopefulness. But at my core, I really do believe in the power of people. I drive my hope from people fighting for change and refusing to accept the status quo—whether that’s an advocate working to design better spaces or a literal 13-year-old girl who chooses not to use her phone at the dinner table.

Every act of resistance matters in shifting the status quo from harm toward a brighter future. So I encourage, listeners and readers to think really critically to themselves and like what I’ve been doing about how not only to like support these macro and micro acts of resistance, but like how to personally engage in it yourself and whatever lights your fire. It is those who decide to resist that alluring pull of the “what is” in pursuit of “what could be” who give me profound hope that humanity can usher us out of a darker moment in history with social media and AI and into a new chapter where we can beautifully coexist with technology, reap its benefits, and design social media and AI in ways that allow us to thrive rather than simply increase the profits of a select few.

Michael Slaby: One of the challenges of the power imbalance between a platform and a young person is that expecting a kid to resist the tide is a lot to ask. Meta just recently settled one of the big lawsuits against them. Now, whether that settlement ends up being them buying their way out of responsibility, time will tell. But built into the settlement is this idea that there are design changes that could create healthier spaces and give young people more guardrails. Does that give you hope that advocacy and institutions can begin to make this a less asymmetric battle—and hold tech companies accountable for creating healthier environments?

Emma Lembke: I believe that the settlement is more nuanced than people think. I agree that time will tell if design changes will be made, but the fact that media news sources are reporting on it and so many people are excited about the potential for design changes makes me optimistic. Going back to when I was that 12-year-old getting on Instagram, to say to a child, “Here is a trillion-dollar corporation, and they’re going to create this expensive algorithm that’s going to try to hook you and maximize the time that you spend on your device. But you should push back, build better habits, and put your phone down at dinner”—that is a lot to ask. While I advocate for micro changes at the individual level, I do think that the ultimate responsibility and onus needs to fall on the tech company, the corporations who are making active choices.

I think lawmakers need to step up to the plate and begin to actively and critically and meaningfully regulate. One of the design changes they were talking about making was not sending notifications during school hours. That is one very easy choice that could have been made at the beginning that is being triggered by a gigantic settlement, which is very discouraging. Companies need to be held responsible and make better choices, but a way to do that is to pressure, regulate, and pass bills and laws. I think there has to be a myriad of responses from different stakeholders to be able to truly hold these companies accountable. It is discouraging that design changes are conditional upon seventeen billion dollar settlements.

Michael Slaby: Which, by the way, is about the profit they made last quarter. I love the way that you talk about the idea that technology may be inevitable, but the outcomes are not. How do we move from seeing ourselves as passive users of these tools to recognizing our collective responsibility—and our agency—to shape how they affect our communities and society?

Emma Lembke: So many people come to me and ask, “How can I get involved?” I truly believe there are people waiting to know what to do next, and there are so many ways to engage at both the micro and macro levels. You can develop individual habits, reach out to your lawmakers, or join the emerging coalitions doing this work. There are so many actionable steps and so many levers we can pull.

I really love your framing that big tech has fed us this myth of inevitability. I hear it all the time with AI—that we have to adapt because this is simply the future. While I think it’s important to become acquainted with new technologies and feel like you have agency over them, I’m excited because there are still so many choices to be made. I don’t think we’re at the point of doom, but it’s going to take all of us. It won’t happen because one 13-year-old puts down her phone or one lawmaker passes a bill; it will take a collective moment. And while a $17 billion settlement might be a drop in the bucket for a big tech company, it’s still a place to start. It’s still an important milestone. It’s a drop in the bucket, but there’s still a bucket—and there’s still a cost. It may be small, but it is progress.

About Emma Lembke

Emma Lembke is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the LOG OFF Movement, the Co-Founder of Design It For Us, and thevDirector of Gen Z Advocacy at the Sustainable Media Center.

About Michael Slaby

Michael Slaby is a leader in how values, systems, strategy, and technology drive movements and organizations. At Murmuration, he leads marketing, fundraising, network engagement, and culture. Before joining Murmuration, he was a senior strategist and head of community at Harmony Labs where he worked on accelerating media reform and transformation. He founded and was head of mission of Timshel, a social impact technology company, and was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Michael helped lead the Obama for America campaign as chief integration and innovation officer in 2012 where he oversaw all technology and analytics and as deputy digital director and chief technology officer in 2008.

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Murmuration is a nonprofit working to transform America into a nation where everyone can thrive. We organize a network of community-focused partners and equip them with the insights, tools, and services they need to help communities build and activate power more effectively. murmuration.org

To better understand that instinct, we asked Americans a simple question: How often are the government’s official explanations accurate? The answers reveal a profound shift in how people approach information. Nearly seven in ten Americans begin from the assumption that any official account is either incomplete or intentionally withholding something.

This is not simply a story about conspiracy theories or fringe beliefs. It is a story about what happens when public trust in shared sources of information erodes.. Increasingly, Americans are questioning the motives of anyone claiming to give an authoritative account of reality. They are starting from the assumption that every account is incomplete, and that the truth, if it exists, must be pieced together from somewhere else.

More to the Story

But questions about trust in government are only one part of the story. People’s skepticism extends well beyond the government itself. Nearly nine in ten Americans (88%) believe major events are at least somewhat likely to have hidden causes that are never made public, including 42% who say hidden causes are very likely. Perhaps surprisingly, this worldview is almost identical across political parties. Just under half of Democrats (42%), Independents (42%), and Republicans (43%) all say hidden causes are very likely. Another 46% say hidden causes are at least somewhat likely. At a moment when nearly every issue appears polarized, Americans begin from remarkably similar assumptions about whether the public is receiving the complete story.

At the same time, Americans no longer appear to have a shared authority they turn to for answers. Asked whom they would trust most to know what really happened during a major national event, no source was named by even one in five respondents. Mainstream news organizations led at just 18%, followed by “no one” (15%), eyewitnesses (10%), and themselves (8%).

But that does not mean Americans have stopped looking for help. When they are unsure whether a claim about politics or current events is true, they draw from a much wider network of sources to try and verify what happened. Twenty-nine percent say they turn to friends or family who know about the topic, 26% to subject-matter experts or academics, 23% to national news organizations, and 22% to local news. Another 18% look to someone they trust on social media.

Even the definition of healthy skepticism appears to be changing. While 35% of Americans say skepticism means questioning claims until there is good evidence, 20% define it as assuming there is usually more happening behind the scenes. Another 40% say both definitions describe healthy skepticism equally well.

History, Controversy, and Conspiracy

Over a range of questions, Americans vary from broad consensus on certain documented historical facts to division over more controversial or contested events.

The strongest agreement appears around events that have since become historically established. Eighty-seven percent believe tobacco companies knew smoking was harmful before publicly admitting it, while 69% believe the FBI monitored Martin Luther King Jr. More than two-thirds also believe climate change is primarily caused by human activity.

Other claims occupy a much less settled middle ground. Fifty-nine percent believe the U.S. government is hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifty-eight percent believe Jeffrey Epstein did not die by suicide. Fifty-four percent believe COVID-19 was intentionally engineered and released. About half believe that the assassination attempts on Donald Trump were staged, and a similar number believe that the CIA was involved in John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Americans overwhelmingly reject claims such as the Earth being flat (79% do not believe), members of the British royal family secretly being reptiles (72% do not believe), or birds actually being surveillance devices (70% do not believe).

Just as revealing as what Americans believe is who is most likely to believe it.

The largest differences in the survey are between generations. Younger adults are consistently more willing to entertain contested explanations. More than half of adults under 35 believe the U.S. government was involved in the September 11 attacks, compared with just 16% of adults over 65. Seventy percent of younger adults believe the government is hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life, compared with fewer than half of older Americans. Younger adults are also substantially more likely to believe that Jeffrey Epstein did not die by suicide, that the CIA was involved in John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and that the 2020 election was “stolen” through widespread voter fraud.

Partisanship matters as well, but often in predictable ways. Republicans are considerably more likely to believe the 2020 election was stolen and that COVID-19 was intentionally engineered and released. Democrats are much more likely to believe January 6 was an insurrection and are also more likely to believe the assassination attempts on Donald Trump were staged. Yet despite these differences, there are surprisingly few partisan divides on some of the survey’s most recognizable claims. Belief that the government is hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life is virtually identical across Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, and belief that Jeffrey Epstein did not die by suicide varies little by party as well.

Finally, uncertainty itself has become one of the defining characteristics of public opinion. Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they are unsure whether the official explanation for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is false. Nearly half are unsure whether the U.S. government conducted the Tuskegee syphilis study, and 44% are unsure whether Mitch McConnell is medically incapacitated.

That uncertainty may be the most important finding in the survey. Americans have not abandoned the idea that truth exists. Rather, many appear to be navigating a world in which they no longer feel confident that any single institution, expert, or official explanation can fully provide it.

Final Thoughts

Trust has always been part of how societies establish truth. We rely on journalists to investigate, scientists to test evidence, courts to evaluate facts, and public institutions to explain what happened. None of those systems has ever been perfect. But they have traditionally provided a common starting point from which disagreement could occur.

Today, that common starting point appears to be eroding. The result is not simply a decline in trust in any one institution, but a fragmentation of public trust across the many sources Americans rely on to understand what is true. That leaves us with difficult questions for the future:

• If Americans increasingly believe there is “more to the story,” what would institutions need to do to earn back the public trust ?

• When does skepticism strengthen democracy, and when does it begin to undermine it?

• How do we create shared confidence in evidence without expecting everyone to reach the same conclusions?

The challenge ahead is not simply helping Americans agree more often. It is rebuilding enough shared confidence that disagreement can still begin from a common understanding of truth and how truth is pursued.

The truth is still out there.

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Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Identify someone as a Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, and we assume we’ve learned something about what they believe. Often, people go further: they might use those few words to make guesses about their values, priorities, and even the kind of person they are.

But what happens when people stop believing those labels are particularly informative?

Murmuration data suggest that may already be happening, especially among younger Americans. The story isn’t simply that younger people are choosing different political identities, or combining several of them. It’s that they appear increasingly skeptical that a political identity can tell you very much about a person in the first place.

Labels Aren’t Enough

The strongest finding in the survey is not that younger Americans are rejecting politics. It is that they appear to be rejecting the idea that a political label can fully describe a person. Adults ages 18 to 34 are the generation most likely to say political and ideological labels “can be useful, but often oversimplify people.” Thirty-five percent hold that view, compared with 30% of adults ages 35 to 49 and just 21% of adults ages 50 to 64. Another 16% of young adults believe political labels are generally useful ways of understanding people.

That skepticism runs deeper than simply questioning whether labels are helpful. Nearly four in ten young adults (39%) say most people are more complicated than any political label can capture. Just 16% believe people generally fit well into the labels they choose. Another 18% say people often use labels that do not actually reflect what they believe, while 22% say it depends on the individual.

In other words, younger Americans are not rejecting political labels outright. They see them as incomplete: a label may tell you something about a person, but not nearly enough to understand what that person actually believes. Among adults ages 18 to 34, 56% say someone’s actions and behavior are the best guide to their beliefs, and another 23% would rather hear the person explain their views in their own words. Just 9% say the political labels people choose for themselves are the most useful signal.

Moreover, among adults ages 18 to 34, just 38% use a political party or ideological affiliation to describe themselves, compared with 50% of adults 65 and older. Nearly a third of young adults (31%) use no label at all, while another 22% use some other type of label (value-based, behavior, etc.) and 18% describe themselves as “independent” or “non-partisan.”

Emotional Power of Labels

If the first finding is that younger Americans see political labels as incomplete, the second is that many of those labels simply provoke less emotion than they once did. For decades, political identities have become increasingly tribal. Among younger Americans, that emotional charge appears to be weakening for many ideological terms.

Only 13% of adults ages 18 to 34 feel very negatively toward the label liberal, compared with 26% of adults ages 65 and older. Likewise, only 6% of young adults feel very negatively toward progressive, compared with 15% of seniors.

The differences become even more striking around labels that have historically generated some of the strongest reactions in American politics. Just 12% of young adults feel very negatively toward socialist, while that number rises to 38% among adults 65 and older. For Democratic Socialist, only 15% of young adults express very negative feelings, compared with 34% of seniors.

These are substantial generational differences, but they should not be interpreted as overwhelming enthusiasm. Young Americans are not rushing to embrace these identities. In fact, the most common response to many political labels is simply neutrality. Large shares of young adults neither strongly identify with nor strongly reject terms like moderate, libertarian, centrist, and capitalist. Across the population as a whole, even the most positively viewed labels inspire more neutrality than excitement. Independent receives the broadest positive ratings nationally, while moderate is viewed favorably by many but passionately by very few.

There are important exceptions. Young adults remain strongly negative toward MAGA, with 45% reporting very negative feelings toward the label, higher than among adults 65 and older. Likewise, they are substantially less favorable toward Republican and conservative than older generations.

This is not evidence that younger Americans have moved beyond polarization altogether. Instead, it suggests something more nuanced. The traditional ideological vocabulary of American politics may be losing some of its emotional intensity, even as movement-based identities remain highly polarizing. Labels associated with broad political philosophies, such as liberal, progressive, or socialist, elicit less hostility among younger adults than they do among older Americans. Labels attached to contemporary political movements continue to divide sharply.

Final Thoughts

Younger Americans are not telling us that political identity no longer matters. They are telling us that identity is more layered than the categories they have inherited. They are more likely to see labels as incomplete, less likely to assign them intense emotional weight, and more likely to believe that understanding someone requires looking beyond the words they use to describe themselves. In a political culture that increasingly asks us to sort one another into camps before we’ve had a conversation, that shift may prove more consequential than any change in ideology.

It also raises a number of questions that extend well beyond this survey:

• If younger Americans are becoming less attached to traditional political labels, what will replace them as the primary way people organize their political identities?

• Can our political parties, campaigns, and media adapt to a generation that appears less interested in fitting neatly into the categories those institutions were built around?

• And if Americans increasingly believe that actions reveal more than labels, how might our politics change if we spent less time asking what people call themselves and more time asking what they actually care about?

Perhaps the future of American politics is not one without labels, but one where labels return to being what they were always meant to be: a starting point for understanding rather than the conclusion. Because if people are more complicated than the words we use to describe them, our politics should make room for that complexity too.

Understanding begins where labeling ends.

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This research was supported by the Walton Family Foundation, which has funded Murmuration’s Gen Z research efforts since 2021. Learn more about our ongoing research partnership and findings on the youngest generation of voters here.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Many Americans look at political leaders, corporate executives, media figures, and other visible decision-makers and see people whose lives bear little resemblance to their own. That distance helps explain the rise of outsider candidates, frustration with political elites, and growing demands for institutions that feel more reflective of and responsive to ordinary people.

Beneath many of these debates is a fundamental question: who speaks for us?

In partnership with RepresentWomen, Murmuration surveyed more than 5,000 Americans about political leadership, representation, and the future of democracy. What emerged was a public that remains deeply dissatisfied with the current political system, but still believes that we have the ability to improve our representation, elections, and ultimately our democracy.

Americans have not stopped believing representation matters. If anything, they appear to be searching for leaders and institutions that feel closer to the people they are meant to serve. And perhaps most notably, Americans seem less interested in preserving the political system exactly as it exists today than in finding ways to make it feel more representative, more responsive, and more reflective of the communities it governs.

The People and the Powerful

For years, Americans have been told that polarization is the defining problem facing democracy. Yet when given the opportunity to identify the biggest challenge themselves, people were far more likely to focus on who holds power and whose interests are being served.

More than one-quarter of Americans (26%) identified corruption as the biggest challenge facing politics today, making it the most common response in the survey. Another 17% pointed to the influence of special interests. By comparison, just 9% cited political division, 5% pointed to ineffective government, and 4% identified political violence.

That concern also shows up elsewhere in the data. More than two-thirds of Americans (68%) say they are dissatisfied with the current political system, including 43% who are very dissatisfied. Yet this frustration does not appear to reflect a wide-spread rejection of democracy itself. A majority (53%) still believe elections give citizens a meaningful say in how the country is governed, and nearly two-thirds (64%) believe the rules governing elections can be changed to make elections fairer.

In fact, Americans seem remarkably open to change. Nearly six in ten (58%) say the country needs major changes to the way elections and representation work, while only 8% believe no changes are necessary. Similarly, 59% say making important changes to improve representation and fairness is more important than preserving stability and trust in existing democratic institutions. That appetite for reform extends across regions and community types, suggesting that concerns about representation and responsiveness are not confined to any one part of the country.

New Voices, New Perspectives

Across the survey, one answer appeared again and again: more choice, more independence, and more perspectives.

Nearly eight in ten Americans (78%) said it is more important to have an election system that gives voters greater flexibility to support their preferred candidates than one that gives political parties more control over who appears on the ballot. Similarly, nearly three-quarters (73%) said they prefer politicians who make decisions based on the issue and circumstances rather than those who reliably support their party’s agenda.

Even when evaluating candidates, Americans appear far more interested in individuals than institutions. Two-thirds (66%) say a candidate’s views and experiences are more important than the political party they represent, while just 27% prioritize party affiliation. That desire is not limited to any particular political camp. Across partisan groups, Americans consistently place greater value on candidates’ experiences and independent judgment than on party loyalty alone.

That desire for proximity extends beyond politics itself.

By nearly three to one, Americans say bringing new perspectives and experiences into government (62%) is more important than having extensive experience working within government (21%). At a moment when many institutions are struggling to earn credibility, voters appear to be placing a premium on lived experience and fresh perspectives over traditional credentials.

This may also help explain why many Americans see value in expanding who holds office. Nearly half (46%) say increasing the number of women in elected office is important, while only 21% say it is unimportant. When asked what would happen if more women were elected, Americans most often pointed to outcomes tied directly to representation: 39% believe different issues would receive more attention, 36% believe more people would feel represented, and 33% believe government would better reflect the population.

Underlying these findings is a broader belief that leadership is shaped by experience. Americans appear to recognize that people who bring different perspectives, priorities, and lived realities into public office. A government that draws from a wider range of experiences is often seen as better equipped to understand the communities it serves.

Final Thoughts

For much of the last decade, Americans have been consumed by questions of polarization, misinformation, and political division. But these findings suggest another question may be just as important: do people feel like the institutions governing them understand them?

That is ultimately a question about belonging.

People are more likely to trust institutions when they feel seen by them. More likely to participate when they believe their voices matter. More likely to accept decisions—even ones they disagree with—when they feel represented in the process.

Americans do not appear to be giving up on representation. They are asking whether the institutions around them are still capable of providing it. Which means the future of democracy may depend on answering a few difficult questions:

• When do people feel like government is truly listening?

• What would it take to narrow the distance between institutions and the communities they serve?

• And how do we rebuild trust when so many people feel disconnected from the people making decisions on their behalf?

Representation, after all, is about more than elections. It is about whether people can see their communities, experiences, and priorities reflected in public life. It is about whether institutions feel distant or familiar, responsive or disconnected, accountable or insulated.

The floor is ours.

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Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

RepresentWomen is a nonpartisan research and action hub that promotes evidence-based solutions to improve women’s political representation and leadership in the United States. representwomen.org

In today’s special edition of our interview series The Exchange, we’re spotlighting voices from America 251 & Beyond, our recent event at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City. We brought together leaders, organizers, creators, and journalists to explore what kind of country we want to build over the next 250 years through a series of lightning talks, grounded in Murmuration’s research.

Over the past seven weeks, our State of Us America 251 data series explored how Americans experience belonging, connection, joy and meaning, identity, change, nation, and hope–and our interactive report features even more data insights and offers a deeper look at how these themes shape our everyday lives.

Thank you to Murmuration’s Chief Research Officer, Sarah Stamper, Alex Johnston, Amanda Litman, Cord Jefferson, Astead Herndon, Daria Dawson, Murad Awawdeh, and Jason Green for sharing their ideas, experiences, and stories that made clear that the future of American civic life will be shaped not by any one institution or individual, but by the countless ways people choose to participate in, care for, and invest in their communities.

251 & Beyond Research Overview

Sarah Stamper | Chief Research Officer, Murmuration

“If you want to understand where America is going next, you should not start in Washington. You should start with the questions people are asking around their kitchen tables every night.”

Read the full transcript of Sarah Stamper’s lightning talk on what listening to 35,000 people revealed about building the next chapter of our country’s future.

Place & Belonging

Alex Johnston | Founder and CEO, Cities Reimagined

“Dignified interactions don’t just build trust in our institutions. They determine what kind of citizens people show up as….It decides whether somebody may look out for their neighbor because they care about what’s going on.”

Read the full transcript of Alex Johnston’s lightning talk on how the relationship between dignity, trust, and service delivery shapes our democracy.

Connection & Community

Amanda Litman | Co-Founder and President, Run for Something

“As I look to what we need to build to get out of this era that we are in, it’s strong ties between neighbors. It’s people feeling like they can have their friends, their colleagues, their acquaintances over for dinner without feeling like it needs to look good for Instagram, without feeling like their kitchens need to be immaculate, their meals need to be perfect, that everything needs to go exactly right.”

Read the full transcript of Amanda Litman’s lightning talk on what she’s learned about building community from hosting a year of dinners in her living room.

Joy & Meaning

Cord Jefferson | Writer and Filmmaker

“We need to fight like hell to make sure that we remain connected to one another in a world increasingly designed to limit our reliance on and interactions with one another.”

Read the full transcript of Cord Jefferson’s lightning talk on how choosing connection over convenience can lead to a more meaningful life.

Identity

Astead Herndon | America, Actually Host & Editorial Director

“I never set out to be objective because I was more focused on being fair, being transparent, and being accurate...I never pretended that my lens as a reporter was not informed by my identity as a Black person, as a young person, or even more privileged identities like being male or able-bodied or straight.”

Read the full transcript of Astead Herndon’s lightning talk on being informed by identity, but guided by curiosity.

Change & Agency

Daria Dawson | Executive Director, America Votes

“Agency has always required us to move before we know what the outcome is. Sometimes we like to confuse confidence with agency. Confidence says, I know this will work. Agency says, I don’t know how this is going to end, but I’m going to do it anyway.”

Read the full transcript of Daria Dawson’s lightning talk on why cultivating agency depends on helping people see that their actions matter.

Nation

Murad Awawdeh | President and CEO, New York Immigration Coalition

“The promise of this country isn’t dead. It’s under construction. And it always has been. We keep asking the wrong questions of who belongs in America…We act as if there aren’t enough seats at the table in this country when there’s more than enough seats. But a nation isn’t a table. It’s a barn, and we’re barn raising. It’s getting bigger every time someone new picks up a hammer.”

Read the full transcript of Murad Awawdeh’s lightning talk on why building a stronger America starts with expanding who gets to belong.

Hope

Jason Green | Community Builder and Author

“Hope is not optimism. Optimism is the blind belief that things will get better. Hope requires action. Hope is a belief that our actions still matter.”

Read the full transcript of Jason Green’s lightning talk on keeping hope alive in an unfinished America.

While our America 251 & Beyond event may be over, the research that inspired these lightning talks lives on. Check out Murmuration’s interactive research report to explore the data that shaped the event.

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Murmuration is a nonprofit working to transform America into a nation where everyone can thrive. We organize a network of community-focused partners and equip them with the insights, tools, and services they need to help communities build and activate power more effectively. murmuration.org

If you’re catching up on the series, here are links for our posts on: Belonging, Connection, Joy and Meaning, Identity, Change, and the Nation.

Hope can feel difficult to talk honestly about right now. Americans are living through political division, economic pressure, institutional distrust, loneliness, climate anxiety, and constant exposure to crisis. Cynicism often feels safer than optimism.

And yet people continue to hope anyway.

Not always in grand or abstract ways, but in deeply human ones: caring for family, building community, mentoring young people, creating things, helping neighbors, imagining better futures, and continuing to show up for one another even when the future feels uncertain.

Hope is not denial. It is a form of investment in the future, even when the future is unclear.

Hope Lives Closest to Home

Americans are not equally hopeful about everything. They are most hopeful about the parts of the future that feel closest to them. Roughly two-thirds say they feel hopeful about their own lives (66%). A smaller majority feel hopeful about the future of their communities (54%). Hope drops considerably when people think about the future of the United States (38%) and the world (36%).

In some ways, this finding echoes what we found throughout the series. Belonging was local. Connection was local. Change was local. It seems that Americans have not lost hope but they may have relocated it.

When Americans describe hope, they talk about people. Asked which actions best reflect hope for the future, Americans overwhelmingly choose helping someone who needs it (30%) and caring for family and friends (19%). Far fewer point to voting (5%), creating or building something (7%), or showing up for their community (6%).

This local focus is also clear when we ask people to recount a recent experience that gave them hope. There, 21% mention witnessing kindness in their community, 17% mention personal progress, and 16% mention family milestones. Only 15% mention national events, and only 11% say some version of “nothing”.

This finding is easy to overlook because it feels ordinary. But perhaps that is the point. Much of modern political life asks people to think about the future through institutions, elections, and large-scale systems change. Americans, by contrast, seem to experience hope through everyday acts of care and contribution.

But while Americans largely agree on what hope looks like, they do not experience it equally. Again, Americans who are financially comfortable are substantially more likely to feel hopeful about their own lives (83% of Prosperous vs. 38% of Struggling), their communities (68% vs. 37%), the country (67% vs. 24%), and the world (51% vs. 24%). They are also far less likely to identify financial stress as an obstacle to hope (10% vs. 44%).

Those who are struggling financially tell a different story. Financial stress looms larger. Confidence in the future is lower. The future itself can feel less certain and less attainable.

The Future Americans Want

When asked what would make America more successful by 2050, Americans point first to less stressful and more stable lives (32%). Others emphasize stronger communities (20%), more belonging (15%), more time for what matters (13%), and less loneliness (12%). Those who feel hopeful about their own lives are more likely to think stronger and more connected communities are the most important factor in America’s future success, while those who do not feel hopeful emphasize less stress and more stability.

When asked what would make the biggest difference for the country’s future, the most common answer is clear: more people being able to afford a stable and secure life (43%). Americans also point to smaller economic and social divides (18%), better physical and mental health (13%), and more opportunity (12%).

The same pattern appears when people think about democracy itself. Americans say democracy would improve if the government worked better for ordinary people (33%) and if people could disagree without hating one another (30%). But the priorities differ sharply based on how hopeful they feel about the country’s future. Among those who are very hopeful, 41% say the biggest need is learning to disagree without hating one another. Among those who are not at all hopeful, 45% instead point to a government that works better for ordinary people.

Interestingly, when we asked people to describe something they hoped they would see in their lifetime, the most common answers were about political changes. One in five (20%) cited political changes, the most common response. Another 14% mentioned world peace, and 10% described equality and social progress. Fourteen percent described accomplishing personal goals, and another 14% described family milestones.

Final Thoughts

People thrive when they have roots, relationships, and room to pursue what matters. They thrive when they feel recognized, empowered, included, and hopeful about the future. And while the specifics changed from survey to survey, one pattern remained remarkably consistent: the clearest divide in the data was between those with enough stability to participate fully in their lives and communities and those still struggling to secure that foundation.

So we will leave you with a few questions for the next 250 years:

• How do we build communities where more people feel they belong?

• What creates the conditions for people not just to survive, but to participate, contribute, and thrive?

• And how do we ensure that hope is not a privilege reserved for those with the greatest resources and security?

Across seven surveys, the future Americans described was not extraordinary. In many ways, it was remarkably human: more connection, more dignity, more opportunity, more participation, and more hope.

Perhaps the challenge of America’s next 250 years is not imagining a better future. It is creating the conditions that allow more people to experience it.

We are in. Who wants to join us?

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As America marks its 250th anniversary, this State of Us series looks beyond nostalgia and national myth toward the future we still have the chance to build—one grounded in belonging, connection, dignity, and the everyday realities of American life.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

America has always been an unfinished project.

From the beginning, the country’s ideals have existed alongside exclusion, inequality, and ongoing arguments about who counts, who belongs, and who the nation is ultimately built for. As debates around immigration, citizenship, identity, and democracy intensify, many Americans are asking deeper questions about the identity of the nation itself.

For some, America represents freedom and opportunity. For others, it evokes disappointment, exclusion, or a promise that has never been fully realized. Many Americans feel pride in the country’s diversity, creativity, and democratic ideals while simultaneously feeling disconnected from the national story America tells about itself.

What we found in this data is more complicated than either patriotism or cynicism. Americans remain deeply attached to the idea of America. But many are less certain that America is living up to its promise or that people like them are fully included in its future.

American, But Not Uncritical

Nearly eight in ten Americans identify strongly or completely as American (79%), including a majority who say they identify completely (52%). At first glance, that finding might seem surprising. Public discourse often suggests that national identity itself is becoming fractured. But the data tell a different story. The real divide is not whether people identify as American. It is whether they believe America is living up to its ideals.

Only about half of Americans believe the country is close to being a place where everyone has a fair chance to live freely and with dignity (53%). Many believe America remains far from that aspiration. A plurality believe America is currently mostly built to serve politicians and people in power (28%), and another 26% say it is built to serve wealthy people. Merely 7% say it is built to serve working people, and only 14% say it serves everyone equally.

At the same time, Americans continue to find reasons for pride. When asked what makes them most proud of the country, they point first to freedoms and rights (27%). Others cite America’s diversity (16%) and communities helping one another (14%). What stands out is what people do not mention. Few point to military power, global dominance, or economic strength. And when asked what disappoints them most about America, government dysfunction emerges as the clear leader (37%), far ahead of any other response.

When asked what being an American means to them, people demonstrated a surprising level of agreement, with more than half (51%) writing about freedom and liberty. Another 23% wrote simply about pride and patriotism, and 13% wrote about having responsibility to their communities. We also continue to see that some Americans are more concerned about the country’s current state, with 13% choosing to write in either “nothing” or explicitly describing a challenge the country is facing.

The Nation Americans Want

Despite most people having a strong sense of American identity, far fewer feel included in the story America tells about itself. Only about a quarter say people like them are often or always included in conversations about America’s future (23%). Roughly a third say people like them are rarely or never included (35%).

A similar result is found when people are asked whether their own life fits the American story. Only about a third say their life fits that story very well (31%). The rest say it fits only somewhat, a little, or not at all.

Despite widespread frustration, Americans remain fairly aligned on the values they want the country to embrace moving forward. When asked which value should guide America over the next 250 years, three themes rise to the top: equality (22%), caring for one another (21%), and freedom (18%). Identity has an impact: among those who identify completely as American, 22% chose freedom as the value to guide America moving forward. This compares to 11% of those who somewhat identify as American, or 9% of those who do not identify that way at all.

In fact, when we asked what today’s kids should be taught about America, the most common answer (25%) was about character and values, followed by what can be achieved with hard work (17%). Again, mentions of freedom and sacrifice (17%) were common, as was the importance of kindness and respect (15%). Five percent mentioned civic participation. But here too, people voice concern about the country, with 11% saying we should warn kids of a potential America in decline, or that the country used to be better.

That said, the data also point to more optimism than headlines might suggest. Most Americans express at least some confidence that the country can build a better future for the next generation (76%). While relatively few are very confident, outright pessimism remains a minority view.

Who Feels Included?

Across this series, financial comfort has repeatedly emerged as one of the strongest predictors of how Americans experience their lives. But the differences in this data on nationhood are among the largest we’ve seen.

Americans who are financially comfortable are dramatically more likely to feel that people like them are included in conversations about America’s future (25% of Prosperous vs. 4% of Struggling). They are more likely to say their life fits the American story (56% vs. 18%). They are more likely to believe everyone can live freely and with dignity (43% vs. 15%). And they are substantially more confident that America can build a better future for the next generation (84% vs. 57%).

Those who are struggling financially tell a different story. Many are less likely to see themselves reflected in the nation’s future, less likely to believe the American promise applies equally to everyone, and less confident that the next generation will inherit something better.

Final Thoughts

One of the most striking findings in this survey is that Americans have not abandoned the idea of America. Most still identify strongly as American. Most still find reasons for pride. Americans remain deeply attached to the country’s ideals. What many are questioning is whether those ideals are being realized in practice and whether people like them are fully included in the future being built.

Beneath these findings lies a deeper set of questions:

• What helps people feel represented in conversations about the country’s future?

• Why do so many Americans identify strongly as American while simultaneously feeling disconnected from the national story?

• And what does it take for people to believe that the promise of America applies to them too?

Six posts into this series, here is what we know: People need roots, relationships, room to pursue what matters, recognition, agency, and a sense that they belong not only in their communities, but in the broader story of the country itself.

For all of our disagreements about politics, policy, and culture, most Americans still seem to share a common aspiration: a country where people are free, treated fairly, cared for by one another, and able to contribute to something larger than themselves.

America is still being written.

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As America marks its 250th anniversary, this State of Us series looks beyond nostalgia and national myth toward the future we still have the chance to build—one grounded in belonging, connection, dignity, and the everyday realities of American life.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Many Americans look around and see reasons for concern. Rising costs, political division, loneliness, declining trust in institutions, and a sense that many of the systems meant to support people are not working as well as they should. Given that backdrop, it is not surprising that many are uncertain about the country’s direction.

The deeper question is what happens next. When people see problems that feel larger than themselves, do they believe change is possible? And if so, who do they believe is responsible for making it happen? These questions matter because agency sits at the heart of civic life.

What we found in this survey is more hopeful than the national mood might suggest. Americans remain deeply frustrated by many of the challenges they face. Yet they have not given up on change. Instead, they appear to be rethinking where change comes from and what meaningful action looks like. Rather than looking exclusively to national leaders or institutions, many place their faith closer to home—in local communities, personal relationships, and the belief that small actions can still add up to something larger.

Ordinary People Matter Most

For all the discussion about cynicism and distrust, Americans still believe in the power of ordinary people. More than nine-in-ten say ordinary people can help change things in their communities at least somewhat (92%). More than half believe ordinary people can make a difference “a lot” or “a great deal” (52%). Most Americans also report having at least some control over the direction of their own lives (91%), with a majority saying they have “a lot” or “a great deal” of control (51%).

What makes this finding particularly striking is how little disagreement exists. Across age groups, educational backgrounds, races, and political affiliations, Americans are remarkably aligned in believing that ordinary people make a difference.

That faith stands in sharp contrast to how Americans view those currently in power. Asked what future generations are most likely to say we got wrong, the most common answer is political leadership (23%). Here, too, we see remarkable unanimity. Across age, education, parental status, race, income, and gender, Americans most often point to today’s political leaders, followed by lost values and connections (16%) and division and hatred (13%).

This frustration is mirrored when we ask people what they wish they had the ability to influence in America. A plurality point to politics and government (26%), the very area they expect to regret most, while another 12% name social division and civility.

The data also suggest Americans have not entirely lost faith in solving big problems. When asked which challenge seems most realistic to address, respondents pointed first to the cost of living (22%), followed by government accountability (14%), healthcare (12%), housing affordability (9%), and education (9%). Notably, relatively few selected political division (6%). The issues people believe can be solved are often the ones they can see, experience, and influence directly.

By now, this won’t surprise you: the strongest divide in the data is financial comfort. Americans who are financially comfortable are far more likely to feel they have a great deal of control over the direction of their own lives (52% of Prosperous vs. 13% of Struggling). They are also more likely to believe ordinary people can help change things a great deal in their communities (47% vs. 26%) and to have taken action locally in the past year (55% vs. 33%).

The opposite is also true. Americans who are struggling financially are more likely to feel little or no control over their own lives, less likely to have acted in their communities, and more likely to say they wanted to get involved but have not yet done so.

Making Change Local

When asked where real change happens in America, no single institution dominates. Americans are divided among ordinary people and local communities (20%), elected leaders and government (18%), social movements (17%), and major crises or hard times (18%).

But when we look at how people personally define meaningful action, a much clearer picture emerges. The most meaningful action, according to Americans, is helping someone directly (33%). Volunteering (19%) and voting (19%) tie for second. Far fewer point to joining organizations, contacting elected officials, donating money, or speaking publicly.

When Americans think about change, they tend to imagine it at a human scale. A neighbor helping a neighbor. A volunteer showing up consistently. A community solving a local problem. A person deciding to get involved.

The behavioral data tell a similar story. More than four in ten Americans say they have taken action to improve something in their local community during the past year (41%). Another nearly three-in-ten say they have wanted to but have not yet taken action (29%). Belief in how much ordinary people can change things has an impact on how often Americans take action in their own communities. A majority (56%) of those who believe ordinary people can change things a great deal have taken action at least once in the past year, compared to those who don’t think people can change things at all (21%).

The data also reveal something encouraging about how Americans connect across differences. Most report having meaningful conversations with people from a different generation at least sometimes (77%), including a substantial share who do so very often (29%).

Final Thoughts

While trust in institutions may be strained, belief in people remains remarkably resilient. Americans still believe ordinary people can make a difference. They still see value in helping neighbors, volunteering, showing up for their communities, and investing in the places closest to them. For many, change feels less like something delivered from above and more like something built from the ground up.

The data have us wondering about what strengthens civic agency:

• What helps people believe that change is possible in the first place?

• What helps people move from wanting to make a difference to actually taking action?

• How can communities create more opportunities for people to participate in meaningful ways close to home?

This data mirrors a pattern we’ve seen throughout this series. Whether we are talking about belonging, connection, joy, identity, or change, Americans consistently place their faith in things that are personal, local, and relational. The strongest forces in civic life often begin not with institutions, but with people.

Democracy starts close to home.

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As America marks its 250th anniversary, this State of Us series looks beyond nostalgia and national myth toward the future we still have the chance to build—one grounded in belonging, connection, dignity, and the everyday realities of American life.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Identity has always shaped American life: who belongs, who is seen, who is valued, and who has access to power and opportunity. But identity is also deeply personal, shaped by family, community, culture, work, memory, and experience.

Most Americans are still in the process of becoming themselves.

In a culture that prizes certainty and self-definition, that may sound surprising. Yet our data suggest that identity is less a destination than an ongoing process. People are continually adapting, balancing different roles, and reconciling who they are with who they hope to become.

The result is a portrait of Americans that is both hopeful and complicated: people who are largely proud of who they are, yet still evolving; who often feel accepted, yet still feel pressure to fit in; and who are searching not just for belonging, but for the freedom to become themselves.

A Work in Progress

The first thing that stands out in the data is how few Americans believe they are finished becoming who they are. Two-thirds say they are still growing or changing as a person, either “a great deal” or “quite a bit” (66%). Only a small share says they are no longer changing at all (4%). Even among older Americans, many continue to describe themselves as evolving.

When people describe who they are today, they rarely offer fixed labels. Instead, they talk about themselves as people navigating life, balancing responsibilities, and continuing to become. As one 21-year-old woman from Texas put it, she is “an open-minded Hispanic woman trying to navigate the changes in this country.” A 38-year-old man from South Carolina described himself as “a motivated professional who values family and community.” Others defined themselves through everyday passions and aspirations: “I am a simple person. I love punk rock and beer. I love helping people,” wrote a 47-year-old man from Louisiana, while a 59-year-old woman from California summed herself up as “an American citizen just trying to live the American dream.”

At the same time, Americans see their identities as deeply rooted in the people and places that shaped them. Seven in ten say their upbringing influences who they are today either “a lot” or “almost entirely” (70%). When asked who had the biggest influence on who they became, the answers were remarkably grounded. Parents topped the list (27%), followed by spouses and partners (18%). Far fewer pointed to public figures, books, media, or cultural leaders. In an era often defined by influencers and algorithms, the strongest influences on identity remain the people closest to us. This finding also challenges the popular notion that identity is purely individual. Only about one in five Americans say they mostly figured out who they are on their own (21%).

The Many Selves We Carry

Most Americans report being able to be their true selves in daily life. Roughly two-thirds say they can do so always or often (67%). Most also say they feel respected and appreciated by the people around them (72%), and more than half say they often or always feel proud of who they are (56%).

But another set of numbers tells a different story. Large majorities say they feel pressure to act a certain way because of what others expect, at least sometimes (68%). Similar numbers say they feel pulled between different parts of their identity—between different roles, values, obligations, or expectations (68%). These pressures don’t fall only on people who often struggle to be themselves. Even among people who say they are always able to be themselves, half (50%) still feel pulled between different parts of their identity at least sometimes, and 44% feel pressured to act in a certain way at least sometimes.

The data suggest that the challenge facing many Americans is not hiding who they are. It is reconciling the many versions of themselves they are asked to be. Parent and employee. Caregiver and individual. Neighbor and newcomer. Ambitious and exhausted. Independent and responsible to others.

At the same time, those experiences are not distributed equally. Compared to people who perceive themselves as more “normal” in their communities, people who perceive themselves as more “different” are far more likely to say they often or always feel pressure to act a certain way (40% vs 23%). They are also less likely to say they can always be themselves (24% vs 42%), and more likely to say they often or always feel pulled between different parts of their identity (41% vs 22%).

And, as we’ve seen many times now, financial comfort also seems to play a role. Americans who are financially comfortable are significantly more likely to say they can be their true selves. They are more likely to feel proud of who they are. More likely to feel respected and appreciated by the people around them. More likely to see a meaningful role for themselves in their communities.

Those who are struggling financially report a very different experience. They are less likely to feel authentic, recognized, or valued, and more likely to feel different from the people around them.

That does not mean identity is reducible to economics. It isn’t. But it does suggest that authenticity may be easier when people have enough stability to take social, professional, and personal risks. The conditions of daily life shape more than material well-being. They shape whether people feel free enough to fully be themselves.

Final Thoughts

Most Americans are still growing into themselves, navigating the competing roles and expectations of modern life. That may be truer than ever in a world where people move between communities and identities at increasing speed.

At the same time, most want something remarkably simple: to feel seen, respected, and accepted for who they are. The findings leave us with a set of deeper questions about identity and self-expression:

• Why do so many Americans feel different from the people around them?

• What helps people navigate the competing roles and expectations they carry?

• What conditions allow people not only to belong, but to fully and confidently become themselves?

Becoming yourself is not something people do alone. It depends, in part, on whether the people and communities around them create space to be seen, accepted, and valued for who they are.

We are all still becoming.

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As America marks its 250th anniversary, this State of Us series looks beyond nostalgia and national myth toward the future we still have the chance to build—one grounded in belonging, connection, dignity, and the everyday realities of American life.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Much of modern American life feels organized around survival: paying bills, keeping up, staying productive, managing stress. For many people, finding joy has become something squeezed into whatever time remains after work, caregiving, financial pressure, and exhaustion.

Despite how difficult it is to prioritize, joy matters. A flourishing society depends on more than economic growth or political participation. It depends on whether people have the ability to experience meaning, connection, creativity, rest, and pleasure in their everyday lives. Whether they have something to look forward to. Whether they feel their lives are aligned with what matters most to them.

When we asked Americans about joy, we found something both encouraging and revealing. Most people feel like they know what makes a good life. The issue is whether they have enough room in their lives to experience it.

If Time Were Ours

The first thing that stands out in the data is that Americans are not nearly as unhappy as public discourse often suggests. A majority describe themselves as very or mostly happy (57%). Most have at least a few close friends or family members who bring them joy (91%). Nearly six in ten say they are often or always able to be fully present and enjoy positive moments when they happen (59%). And almost nine in ten have something to look forward to at least sometimes, with nearly one in five saying they always do.

What appears to matter most, however, is not simply whether people are doing enjoyable things. It is whether they have something to look forward to. Among Americans who describe themselves as very happy, 85% say they always or often have something to look forward to. By comparison, 76% say they do something for enjoyment daily or a few times a week. Overall, 57% of Americans report making time for enjoyable activities at least a few times a week. But for many Americans, that time is constrained. Half say finances often or always prevent them from doing things they enjoy (50%). Four in ten say stress and responsibilities often or always get in the way (40%).

When we ask Americans how they would spend their time if money and responsibilities were not constraints, their answers tell us a great deal about what people believe is missing from modern life. Half say they would choose a slower-paced life (50%). More than four in ten would spend more time learning new things (42%). Similar shares would spend more time outdoors (40%). Others would devote more time to creative pursuits (36%), building or making things (32%), caring for loved ones (31%), or helping in their communities (31%). Only a relatively small share says they would spend more time working or pursuing entrepreneurial projects (19%).

And what may be one of the most hopeful findings in the data: Most Americans say they find joy in close relationships, hobbies, personal interests, and time spent with family and friends. Many are actively learning something new. Nearly three-quarters report making, fixing, growing, or building something they were proud of in the past year (72%).

Between Living and Thriving

While most Americans report being generally happy, far fewer say their lives are completely aligned with their values, priorities, and sense of purpose. Only a small share describe their lives as fully aligned (7%), while many more say they are only somewhat aligned (51%). Those who say they are “very happy” lately are the only ones who feel that their life is either completely or very aligned with what matters most to them (71%). Even among Americans who are “mostly happy”, just 41% say their lives are completely or very aligned.

Moreover, people can be happy and still feel constrained. They can have moments of joy while sensing that the life they are living is not quite the life they would choose. And, just as we found in our recent analysis on belonging and connection, financial comfort plays an important role.

Americans who are financially comfortable are significantly more likely to report happiness, a sense of alignment, things to look forward to, and the ability to be present and enjoy life’s positive moments. They are more likely to pursue hobbies, spend time learning, engage in creative activities, and feel that their lives reflect what matters most to them.

Those who are struggling financially report a very different experience. They are substantially more likely to say finances prevent them from doing things they enjoy. They are less likely to have something to look forward to, less likely to feel aligned with their priorities, and less likely to experience the everyday conditions that support joy. Notably, financial constraints appear to weigh more heavily on happiness than stress or responsibilities alone. Among Americans who say they have been very unhappy lately, 62% report that money is always preventing them from doing things they enjoy, compared with 49% who say the same about stress and responsibilities.

Three posts into this series, the pattern is becoming difficult to ignore. Financial comfort is shaping more than material well-being. It appears to dramatically influence whether people have the freedom to pursue the relationships, activities, and experiences that make life feel meaningful.

Final Thoughts

Much of the American story is built around the pursuit of happiness. Yet these findings suggest that what people are seeking may be something slightly different.

What many Americans appear to want is the ability to spend more of their lives doing the things that matter to them. To learn. To create. To care for others. To contribute. To spend time with people they love. To feel that their daily lives reflect their values and priorities.

The findings leave us with fundamental questions about what it means to flourish in modern America:

• If Americans know what brings them joy, what keeps them from pursuing it?

• What would change if more people had the time, stability, and resources to live in closer alignment with what matters most?

• And what kind of society are we building if joy becomes something reserved for the moments left over after everything else is done?

Belonging, connection, and joy are often treated as personal choices or personality traits. But the data increasingly suggest they are also shaped by material conditions. People need more than good intentions to thrive. They need enough stability to put down roots, enough connection to feel supported, and enough time and opportunity to fully participate in their own lives.

A good life should feel good, too.

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As America marks its 250th anniversary, this State of Us series looks beyond nostalgia and national myth toward the future we still have the chance to build—one grounded in belonging, connection, dignity, and the everyday realities of American life.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

The desire for connection remains everywhere. People still long for the kinds of relationships and routines that make life feel shared: the friend you call first with good news, the familiar faces at a local coffee shop, the weekly ritual that gives shape to your life, the neighbor who notices when you’re gone.

What we found in our new data is more complicated than the conventional story of isolation. Americans are not as disconnected as often claimed. Most still have people they can rely on, places they gather, and neighbors they help. At the same time, many worry that the communities around them are becoming more fragmented, withdrawn, and divided.

The challenge facing America may not simply be a lack of connection. It may reflect a difference between the connections people experience firsthand and the social fabric they believe exists around them.

The Connections We Still Have

For all the concern about loneliness, the data reveal a country that remains surprisingly connected in everyday ways.

Most Americans report having meaningful conversations with someone outside of work or family at least a few times a week (54%). More than half say they have about the right amount of connection in their lives (53%). When asked how many people in their community they could rely on if they needed help, only a small share said they have no one at all (13%). Most can identify at least a few people they could turn to in a time of need.

When asked who they first tell good news to, 44% named a partner or spouse, 17% a parent, 11% a child, and 10% a friend. Only 3% said they tell no one. Of course, life stage changes these connections. Among Gen Z, a third named a parent, while only 8% of those 55+ did so. Those older adults most often name partners (48%) or children (18%).

A majority of Americans also seem to have social rituals they enjoy. Roughly two-thirds of people described at least one ritual, including shared meals (18%), get-togethers with friends (18%), outdoor activities (13%), among others.

Perhaps most strikingly, nearly seven in ten Americans say they helped a neighbor or someone nearby in the past month (69%). Many report doing so multiple times. These aren’t grand gestures. They are favors, errands, check-ins, rides, meals, and moments of support. And they’re even more common among those who say they completely trust their neighbors (81%). Among those who say they don’t trust or only somewhat trust their neighbors, those numbers are lower: 52% and 65%, respectively. We can’t say for certain which comes first, but trust and neighborly acts of support clearly go hand in hand. Communities where people help one another tend to be more trusting, and that trust may encourage even more helping in return.

The data also suggest that connection is tied to place. Most Americans say they have at least a few places in their community—outside of home and work—where they enjoy being around other people (72%). Most spend time in these spaces at least a few times each month (78%).

Whether it’s a church, library, coffee shop, park, volunteer organization, community center, or local business, these third spaces create opportunities for the repeated interactions that allow relationships to form.

Alone Together?

While Americans generally describe their own relationships positively, they are far less positive when describing the broader communities around them. Most people say they have the right amount of connection in their lives. Most people have people they can rely on. Most people have meaningful conversations and regularly help others.

Yet only about a third describe the people in their communities as connected (35%). Similar shares describe their communities as cohesive (33%) or engaged (38%). Large numbers instead see their communities as isolated, divided, or withdrawn.

This discrepancy appears throughout the data. Americans seem considerably more confident about their own relationships than they are about the connections and cohesion within their communities. But here again, we see a critical role for interpersonal trust to play. Among those who completely trust their neighbors, 55% see their broader communities as connected, 47% as cohesive, and 55% as engaged, rates that are +39pp, +34pp, and +40pp higher than those who say they don’t trust their neighbors.

Connection Has an Economic Gradient

Just as financial comfort shaped whether people felt rooted in our belonging data, it also appears to shape whether people feel connected.

Across nearly every measure, financially comfortable Americans report being more likely to trust the people who live near them (63% of Prosperous vs. 34% of Struggling). They are more likely to report daily meaningful conversations outside of work and family (41% vs. 18%). They are more likely to feel they have the right amount of connection in their lives (66% vs. 34%). They are also more likely to have places in their community where they enjoy spending time around other people (81% vs. 55%), more likely to have multiple people they could rely on for help (89% vs. 70%), and more likely to feel confident they could build new relationships if they needed to start over (66% vs. 30%).

The same pattern appears when people evaluate their communities. Americans who are financially comfortable are substantially more likely to describe their communities as connected, cohesive, and engaged. Those who are struggling are far more likely to describe them as isolated, divided, and withdrawn.

Final Thoughts

The story in these data is not that connection has disappeared. Americans are still helping neighbors, relying on one another, and finding places where community can take root. But those connections are not as secure or widely shared as we might hope.

Throughout the data, a paradox emerges: people remain confident in their own relationships while believing the broader social fabric is fraying around them. Many continue to build trust and connection in their daily lives while worrying that those same bonds are weakening in society at large.

And, much like belonging, these perceptions are closely tied to financial stability. Americans who feel financially secure are more likely to describe their communities as connected, trustworthy, and engaged, while those facing financial strain are more likely to experience disconnection—not just in their own lives, but in the places around them.

The findings point to several tensions worth exploring:

• Why do Americans remain confident in their own relationships while losing confidence in the social fabric around them?

• What conditions help transform individual relationships into a broader sense of community trust and cohesion?

• As more of life moves online, what kinds of places and experiences still create the shared bonds that hold place-based communities together?

Our findings on belonging and connection suggest that community is not a single feeling. It is a web of relationships, routines, and opportunities that help people feel rooted in both the places they call home and the people around them.

Community doesn’t happen by accident.

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As America marks its 250th anniversary, this State of Us series looks beyond nostalgia and national myth toward the future we still have the chance to build—one grounded in belonging, connection, dignity, and the everyday realities of American life.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Most Americans are not spending their days thinking about semiquincentennials or constitutional originalism. They’re thinking about whether they belong where they live. Whether they can build a meaningful life. Whether they feel connected to other people. Whether joy, dignity, purpose, safety, and hope still feel attainable. Whether democracy can still deliver something human.

Over the coming weeks, in this seven-part series, we’ll explore the themes that lie beneath politics, yet shape civic life every day: belonging, connection, joy, identity, change, nationhood, and hope.

Together, these questions point toward something larger. What are the conditions that allow people not just to survive, but to thrive? What helps people build meaningful lives, contribute to their communities, and imagine a better future?

Welcome to America 251.

Americans move more than almost anyone else in the world. We leave hometowns for opportunity, reinvent ourselves in new places, and often build lives far from the people and communities that raised us. Mobility has long been celebrated as a hallmark of freedom and success. But it comes with a tradeoff: many people are left searching for a sense of belonging.

Belonging is more than identity. It is rootedness—a feeling that you know a place, are known by others, and matter to the community around you. Yet many Americans describe their communities as fragmented, transient, or isolating. Third places are disappearing, housing instability disrupts roots, and more interactions are taking place online than they are in person.

As America approaches its 250th anniversary, belonging is not just a personal question. It is a civic one. Democracy depends not only on institutions but on people feeling connected to the places and communities they call home.

Belonging Starts With Stability

Americans often talk about belonging as a feeling. But our data suggest it may begin with something more concrete: stability.

Most Americans say they feel at least some sense of belonging where they live, and many have lived in the same community for years. Yet beneath those toplines, belonging looks very different depending on whether people feel financially secure.

As shown above, those who are financially comfortable are far more likely to report strong roots in their communities than those who are struggling. They are also dramatically more likely to say they completely belong where they live, know many of their neighbors by name, and feel they have a lot in common with the people around them.

The pattern extends beyond relationships. Financially secure Americans are more likely to say the place they live is “very important” to their identity (42% of Prosperous, 18% of Struggling), that their community provides outdoor spaces “very well” (57% versus 30%), and that “all or most” of the things they need in daily life are located nearby (72% versus 44%). Those who are struggling are more likely to say they have no roots at all (30%) and know few or none of their neighbors (73%).

But stability alone does not appear to create belonging. Relationships also play a big role. Among those who say they completely belong where they live, 70% report having a lot in common with their neighbors. Among those who do not feel they belong at all, that number falls to just 5%. Similarly, people who feel they belong are much more likely to know their neighbors by name. More than half know most or all of their neighbors, compared with just 16% of those who do not feel they belong.

We Stay for People, Not Places

When we asked people why they live where they do—and why they would stay—the answers were remarkably consistent.

The most common reason Americans live where they do is simple: family (30%). Another large share say they remain where they grew up (22%). Fewer cite lifestyle (18%), work (14%), or affordability (11%) as their primary reason for being there.

And when looking toward the future, relationships become even more important. The leading reason people would choose to stay in their community long-term is that family and friends are there (31%).

That connection to place matters more than it might seem. Among Americans with strong roots in their communities, nearly four in ten say they live where they do because it is where they grew up. Among those with no roots at all, only 8% say the same. The importance of social ties becomes even clearer when we look at who feels most rooted. Among Americans with strong roots in their community, 44% say family and friends are the primary reason they would stay long-term. Among those with no roots at all, that figure falls to just 16%.

Interestingly, people who feel a strong sense of belonging are also more likely to say they stay because they value the lifestyle or environment where they live. Those who do not belong are much more likely to say they stay because they lack better options elsewhere.

Final Thoughts

For generations, mobility has been one of America’s defining features. We celebrate the freedom to move, reinvent ourselves, and pursue opportunity wherever it leads. But belonging asks something different of us. It asks us to stay long enough to know our neighbors, build relationships, and become part of a shared story.

What this data makes clear is that belonging is not evenly distributed. Some people feel deeply rooted in the places they call home, while others feel disconnected from the communities around them. The biggest differences are not about who people are. They are about the conditions of their lives: whether they feel financially secure, know their neighbors, have roots in a place, and see themselves as part of a community.

That raises important questions about the future of civic life.

• If financial security is one of the strongest predictors of feeling rooted, what does that mean for communities facing rising housing costs, displacement, and economic uncertainty?

• As families become more geographically dispersed, where will future generations find the relationships that anchor them to place?

• And what does belonging look like in an era when finding connection may be broader than ever, but less deeply rooted?

The challenge is that belonging depends on conditions that feel increasingly fragile: stable housing, economic security, welcoming public spaces, and strong social ties. When those foundations are present, people put down roots. They invest in their neighborhoods, build relationships, and see themselves as part of something larger than themselves.

When those foundations are absent, community can begin to feel temporary—even when people never leave.

Find your place. Find your people.

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As America marks its 250th anniversary, this seven-part State of Us series looks beyond nostalgia and national myth toward the future we still have the chance to build—one grounded in belonging, connection, dignity, and the everyday realities of American life.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

That uncertainty puts enormous pressure on schools. People aren’t just asking what children should learn. They’re asking what young people will need to survive—economically, socially, emotionally, and civically—in a world that feels like it keeps changing faster than institutions can keep up.

So this month, we asked Americans a series of forced-choice questions about what K-12 schools should prioritize. What emerged was not a simple preference for career preparation or civic education, individual growth or collective responsibility. Instead, Americans seem to want schools to do something much harder: prepare young people to navigate instability without losing their capacity to shape the world around them.

Schools and the Future

When Americans are forced to choose what schools should prioritize most, the results reveal both broad consensus and deep tension about what young people need from education today:

Challenge vs. stability. When forced to choose between preparing young people to challenge and improve society or maintaining order and stability, Americans overwhelmingly favored improvement. Eight in ten (80%) said schools should prepare young people to challenge and improve society, while just 16% prioritized stability.

Jobs vs. community participation. At the same time, Americans remain highly pragmatic about economic survival. More than two-thirds (68%) said schools should prioritize practical skills for jobs and careers over preparing students to be active participants in their communities (28%).

Individual values vs. shared values. The data also suggests Americans are deeply conflicted about values themselves. A slight majority (56%) said schools should encourage students to form their own values, while 38% preferred teaching a common set of shared values.

Personal success vs. community contribution. When asked whether schools should prioritize helping students achieve personal success or teaching them to contribute to their communities, Americans leaned toward personal success (55%), though community contribution remained strong (41%).

Political engagement vs. neutrality. Finally, Americans were more divided on whether schools should stay neutral on social and political issues or actively help students engage with them. A narrow majority (54%) supported schools helping students engage with social and political issues, while 39% preferred neutrality. But this question has the largest partisan split of the five: 69% of Democrats want engagement, while 50% of Republicans prefer neutrality.

Taken together, the five tradeoffs reveal a shared civic aspiration. Americans want schools to prepare young people to improve the world around them, but agreement begins to break down when it comes to how that should happen. While there is broad support for helping students challenge and improve society, there is far less consensus around the civic capacities, shared values, and political engagement that might make that possible.

Gen Z’s Tradeoffs

The clearest generational divide in the data emerged around what schools are for in the first place. Younger Americans are not asking schools to simply educate students. They are asking schools to function as a kind of civic and emotional infrastructure: a place where young people can develop their own values, learn how to engage with difficult social and political realities, and still build practical skills for an uncertain future.

The sharpest generational divide is on values. Nationally, 56% of Americans say schools should encourage individuals to form their own values rather than teach a common set of shared ones. Among Gen Z, that number jumps to 66%. Among adults aged 61 or older, it falls to 49%. And within Gen Z, the youngest cohort (those 18 to 23) lands at 69%.

That could read as individualism, and in one sense it is. But pair it with this: Gen Z is also more likely than any other generation to want schools to actively help students engage with social and political issues. Sixty percent of 18-to-30-year-olds want that engagement, compared to 53% of 31-to-45-year-olds and 52% of those 61 and older.

So the Gen Z picture isn’t disengagement or apathy. It’s something more specific: Let me form my own values, and help me learn how to engage with the world aligned with my beliefs.

There’s one more place where Gen Z differs slightly from older Americans. On the jobs versus community participation question—where the national number is 68% jobs, 28% community—Gen Z shifts to 64% jobs, 33% community. Older generations skew even harder toward job skills: 73% of those 61 and older chose career preparation. Gen Z is the group most willing to say that preparing students to be active community participants is part of what schools should do.

What does this add up to? Gen Z has a distinct civic orientation that doesn’t fit cleanly into older frameworks of either engagement or disengagement. They want schools to help them engage with political and social reality. They want to form their own values in the process. And they’re somewhat more willing than older generations to say that becoming an active community participant is itself a legitimate goal of education and not just a nice-to-have after career prep is done.

Final Thoughts

What struck me most about these findings is that Americans are not simply debating education policy. They are debating what kind of future feels possible for young people and what schools are responsible for preparing them to navigate.

At the same time, the data suggests Americans still see schools as one of the few institutions capable of shaping something larger than individual achievement. Even amid disagreement, there remains a shared hope that schools can help young people build lives that are not only economically secure but also meaningful, connected, and engaged with the world around them. Gen Z’s responses, in particular, suggest a generation looking not for answers handed down, but for the tools to participate, question, and define their own place in society.

The questions underneath these findings are ultimately much bigger than education itself:

• What should schools prepare young people for in a world changing this quickly?

• What values, if any, still feel shared enough to teach collectively?

• Can schools realistically prepare students for both economic survival and democratic participation?

Schools have become a container for much larger anxieties about instability, belonging, trust, economic survival, and whether democracy itself still feels cohesive. And Gen Z sits at the center of many of those fears.

Class adjourned.

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This research was supported by the Walton Family Foundation, which has funded Murmuration’s Gen Z research efforts since 2021. Learn more about our ongoing research partnership and findings on the youngest generation of voters here.

Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Murmuration’s Chief Marketing and Operating Officer, Michael Slaby, sat down with Spencer Overton, Law Professor at George Washington University Law School, for The Exchange, our interview series featuring influential thought leaders, organizers, advocates, and others who are shaping the future of civic life.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Michael Slaby: Thanks so much for joining today and taking the time to talk to us about your work, especially at this incredibly complex moment around the idea of political power and enfranchisement in this country. Can you tell me a bit more about how you came to focus on race and democracy?

Spencer Overton: I initially came to democracy work through concerns about money and politics. Early in my career, I was focused on campaign finance and the ways concentrated wealth distorted democratic accountability. Some of that was about the unequal distribution of resources in terms of race, but it was broadly an issue of fairness.

In the aftermath of Bush v. Gore in 2000, it really became impossible to ignore how rules about voting itself, voter identification laws, felony disenfranchisement, and purges were shaping who had political power in America. That led to my book Stealing Democracy, which examined how politicians manipulate electoral rules to maintain power. What struck me over time is that these tactics were rarely isolated. Redistricting, access to the ballot—all these different mechanisms served the same objective, basically deciding in advance whose voices will matter politically.

In about 2014, I stepped away for about five years and ran a Black think tank. We focused on economic issues, but I came back to the issue of politicians manipulating electoral rules to maintain power through a technological lens around 2019. Between 2019 and now, a lot of my work has focused on democracy and technology.

Michael Slaby: You’ve talked about the expressions of political power in the context of the Callais decision and the undermining of section two of the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act was really about ensuring that communities that had been actively oppressed and denied political rights could actually build and exercise political power and ultimately access institutional power in the form of representation in our government. I think we lose sight of the role that drawing maps played in ensuring communities had power.

We’re in a world now where, apparently, redistricting is becoming more common, and I don’t expect that to be a political tool that anybody is willing to set down readily. If we’re constantly remapping, the relationship between political power and place is challenged, complicated, or even distorted.

Spencer Overton: When I started my book Stealing Democracy, the first chapter dealt with democratic gerrymandering in California. I wanted to say the broader issue is politicians manipulating rules to predetermine outcomes here, and that’s a fundamental issue. When race becomes intertwined with these systems, the harms are especially durable because they can lock communities out of meaningful political power for generations. We think about the best political systems being ones where different factions can form, but they can also reshape, and they can create new coalitions in the future to respond to new problems. But when things are fixed because of racial polarization, that’s an issue. I think that’s a problem here that is unique.

We’re seeing all of these different cases coming together—the Callais decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, the Brnovich case, and Rucho putting a green light on partisan gerrymandering. And as a result, we’re in a fundamentally different place. But the fact that we’re in this different place can hopefully open us up to some completely different systems that transcend our existing systems.

Michael Slaby: I think the Callais decision is rooted in a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Voting Rights Act. It was not just enfranchisement, but actually empowerment, literally the ability to exercise political and sustain institutional power for communities. But because that was not clear in the legislation, it’s easy to say things like colorblindness and wave away the injustice and inequity of failing to share power more effectively with communities. What emerging innovations do you see that may allow us to re-engage this question of sharing power?

Spencer Overton: A representative democracy means that people who share interests and experiences can translate their political participation into meaningful representation and meaningful governing power. In our current system of winner-take-all elections, large portions of the electorate routinely end up with no representation that reflects their views. Gerrymandering intensifies that problem, and as a result, there are millions of people who feel like their ballot doesn’t count.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve become increasingly interested in proportional representation. Under proportional systems, groups receive representation roughly proportional to their share of the vote. If a group makes up 30% of the votes and they vote cohesively, they should be able to elect roughly 30% of the legislative body. It helps communities of color secure representation without requiring race-conscious district lines, which are viewed skeptically after Callais, but it’s not just about race. It can improve ideological diversity when we think about a place like Massachusetts, which is about a third Republican, but has no Republican congressional members. The reverse is true in Tennessee, particularly after the recent gerrymander there.

Michael Slaby: At the time of recording this, in the last forty-eight hours, there have been other maps challenged—Alabama and South Carolina, for example. The idea that maps are no longer stable representations of our political landscape is becoming a destabilizing fact for people.

Spencer Overton: I think about how we can develop a system where voters choose the groupings and the outcomes rather than politicians. I also think that people do not have the same confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court that they once did. Instead of a system that’s based on judicial intervention, we need to set up systems where voters select the groups—and then those groups might change from election to election. And then obviously, we’ve got some other issues like money in politics, which is significant. And then there’s our system of primaries, where basically 8% of the population selects 82% of the U.S. House, because of a combination of gerrymandering and low turnout primaries. And the Senate just has so much power in terms of its confirmation power, and it doesn’t reflect the diversity of our country. There are many different structural issues that we have to acknowledge and address.

Michael Slaby: Naming that there is a multiplicity of challenges is important. I think there are moments when we think about democracy reform and innovation, and we get precious about a particular answer, rather than recognizing the multiplicity of solutions that might exist. There are many different dysfunctions. It’s not one dysfunction. So we probably need more than one answer.

Spencer Overton: I think that’s right. There’s not just one silver bullet here that’s going to solve everything. This is a complex system, and there are a variety of things we’ve got to deal with.

Michael Slaby: I’m curious about how you see reform also as an engine of rebuilding trust. That at some level, democracy is a system of faith, and if we don’t believe that our power is being shared, if we don’t believe that our agency has value, we’re not likely to use it, and then we’re unlikely to participate. And then we’re unlikely to trust it, and then the results become questionable. Today, the rule of law is under pressure because we don’t feel like there are any stable or consistent rules. Where do you see opportunities to address this?

Spencer Overton: I think the first step is recognizing that much of the distrust is rational. Americans are responding to real structural problems, such as gerrymandering and politicians who are insulated from accountability. We talked about the Senate. We talked about the Supreme Court. Obviously, campaign spending creates some understandable perceptions that wealthy interests dominate here. So, rebuilding trust cannot rely exclusively on messaging, right? It really requires substantive institutional reform. We talked about how to manage gerrymandering with things like proportional representation. Concerning our Senate piece, that’s really complex because some interpretations of Article V suggest that the U.S. Constitution cannot be amended to base the voting power of U.S. Senators on population, but there could be some intermediate steps, like DC statehood, that give more influence to historically underrepresented communities. And there are some other things that one could possibly do, like Supreme Court ethics reform, shadow docket reform, and obviously campaign finance reform. A lot of the distrust comes when people feel like their participation doesn’t matter.

The book The Turnout Gap by Bernard Fraga proposes that a lot of the racial gaps in participation aren’t due to socioeconomic issues, but due to gerrymandering and people feeling like their vote doesn’t really make a difference. Feeling like you’re making a difference is important. I also think that sometimes reformers ignore deep-seated cultural issues. People feel cultural anxiety. The country is changing from a demographic standpoint, and that creates tension because people are not necessarily ready to share power or feel a threat to their status. How do we recognize that and address it as opposed to simply calling it racist or simply pretending that it doesn’t exist? How do we acknowledge that and make a space that’s respected for people and figure out a way for some of those folks to have trust in a very diverse democracy here?

Michael Slaby: I think at times a failure of imagination keeps allied groups around democracy reform and the voting rights space from cooperating and co-organizing to build collective power. But when we look at younger people, I feel a sense of hope that new justice movements or new reforms might be possible.

Spencer Overton: I’m excited about the fact that younger reformers, and I think younger generations generally, are not just focused on the status quo. Many young people want something that is truly transformative rather than simply kind of nibbling around the edges. The fact that people don’t want to just rely on what has existed before, and are open to and willing to do some different things, gives me hope.

One of the things that concerns me is the evolution of technology and its role in terms of expression, speech, the economy, displacement in terms of jobs, and our ability to govern. I don’t know that we’re going to be able to effectively allow government to ensure that technology works for human beings if we don’t get our democratic institutions right. I don’t know that the government can effectively, for example, regulate technology in light of our current campaign finance rules, gerrymandering, and some of the other incentives. I really feel like we’ve got to get these basic democracy issues together to collectively confront some of these larger challenges of our time.

Michael Slaby: We never proactively laid out what we wanted social media tools to make possible for the community, for engagement, for civic life. I think we’re similarly missing an opportunity to talk about what we want from AI and talking about them too much as a set of things that are happening to us with an inevitability that implies we have no agency. We need to create a powerful public conversation to get what we want explicitly from tools that are meant to elevate humanity and elevate the way society thinks and functions, to create bridges and creativity that don’t exist, but our current systems don’t lend themselves to that type of activity.

Spencer Overton: I think that the first challenge that we have there is that so often we’re reactive in terms of here’s what the problems are, as opposed to proactively describing a vision. Many different people are going to have different visions, but that’s part of the work in terms of having that conversation and working through it. If you haven’t been talking about it and you haven’t kind of worked it through, you’re not going to be able to advance a new vision in the finite window that we have to implement that change.

I think that it is important to have those conversations now and not feel vulnerable, “like it’s inevitable, the machines are definitely going to take over,” or the opposite, right? Like the abundance culture of it’s all just going to get better because AI is great and is going to save us. Recognizing that we have agency both in terms of the technologies as well as laws, and that we have to exercise that agency and figure out what it is that we really want.

Michael Slaby: Do you see places where you would guide people to using that agency, either in that conversation or in the voting rights conversation right now?

Spencer Overton: I have gotten a lot out of looking overseas. For example, in Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement allowed almost warring factions, in terms of the British settlers who are largely Protestant and the native Irish who are largely Catholic, to have an agreement, to share power and work together using proportional representation there. These are tools that have allowed people to share power and make decisions together in times of cultural conflict.

Michael Slaby: I appreciate that focus on looking to relationship and community and the ability to share power in ways that feel just and creative as the driver—not cleverness. In democracy reform conversations, sometimes there are moments where we lose contact with a moral and ethical orientation toward healthy, vibrant relationships and community. And I think to our detriment, because we come off as technocratic and clever in a way that is misleading for what’s really at stake.

Spencer Overton: Some people would say, “let’s just be colorblind,” or “let’s tone it down” in terms of concerns about justice and policing, because we see the backlash that comes from it, so we just all need to be in the middle, and that’s the solution to making everything better.

My concern with that is that it doesn’t account for the pluralism of who we are as a country. I think that some marginalized folks experience that sentiment as similar to the mandated assimilation that we saw in terms of Indian boarding schools, or Black women having to straighten their hair to keep their job, or schoolchildren being prohibited from speaking Spanish at recess. It feeds into a kind of conquest. I think we should reject that and recognize some of the value of pluralism is that we can all share power, and we all can win.

Michael Slaby: More diverse groups are more creative. More diverse groups are more adaptive and adaptable. We flatten the engine of creativity in society if we choose safety or similarity, or assimilation instead of real integration. It’s an incredible missed opportunity in addition to being unjust. On another note, what’s giving you hope for the future right now?

Spencer Overton: I am a law professor, and it’s so neat to work with young minds and their excitement about the future. Younger folks give me hope. History also gives me hope. Many of the periods we now romanticize were experienced at that time as moments of profound crisis. When we think about Bloody Sunday and Selma, many people thought American democracy was and would be fundamentally broken. But that period produced the Voting Rights Act. Watergate exposed serious corruption and abuse of power, but it also generated major campaign finance and ethics reform. Democratic progress in the United States often emerges from periods of intense conflict and institutional failure. And for me, the question is, when the window opens up after this crisis, will we be prepared to kind of usher in a new and better system where different groups are able to share power, and we can move forward?

Michael Slaby: We have to confront and take care of people who are under threat, but we also have to be prepared for the moment when change is possible. We have to do both.

Spencer Overton: We have an opportunity, and we can’t lose hope. We can’t get pessimistic about each other. The founders were not perfect, and there were a lot of flaws. But what we have inherited in terms of a superpower of a nation—there’s so much good we can do in the world if we really focus right now in terms of getting these systems right so that we can share power. Don’t get discouraged. Go out and vote. Be engaged. All those things are really critical at this moment. The future of the nation, and I would say that the future of the world, hangs in the balance in terms of our engagement around democracy issues over the course of the next decade.

About Spencer Overton
Spencer Overton is a tenured professor and the founder and faculty director of the Multiracial Democracy Project at GW Law School. The Project is currently working on proportional representation and other alternatives to our current electoral system as a strategy to preserve representation for communities of color in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s gutting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Spencer is the author of the book Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression and numerous law review articles on democracy, race, and technology. He has also worked on race and democracy issues as a senior policy official in the Obama Administration and as president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies—America’s Black think tank.

About Michael Slaby
Michael Slaby is a leader in how values, systems, strategy, and technology drive movements and organizations. At Murmuration, he leads marketing, fundraising, network engagement, and culture. Before joining Murmuration, he was a senior strategist and head of community at Harmony Labs where he worked on accelerating media reform and transformation. He founded and was head of mission of Timshel, a social impact technology company, and was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Michael helped lead the Obama for America campaign as chief integration and innovation officer in 2012 where he oversaw all technology and analytics and as deputy digital director and chief technology officer in 2008.

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Murmuration is a nonprofit working to transform America into a nation where everyone can thrive. We organize a network of community-focused partners and equip them with the insights, tools, and services they need to help communities build and activate power more effectively. murmuration.org

It’s a useful way to understand not just what people need or want, but what they feel they’re missing. Across more than 6,500 respondents, the answers at $10K were almost uniformly categorized as “necessities”—responses like “Pay off loans,” “get my teeth fixed,” or “A car and groceries.” What’s surprising is that even at $100K, the dominant responses remain practical rather than extravagant. People start to think a bit bigger, but the first instinct is still stability, security, and catching up on basic needs.

In the above chart, we display the single best label for each person’s open-ended response. Respondents who mentioned multiple uses for the money (for example, paying bills while also taking a vacation or helping family) were grouped into the mixed category.

A Stable Foundation

But people’s answers were often much richer (no pun intended) than a single category could capture. Many respondents described layered priorities in the same necessities response: paying bills or loans, repairing a car, or putting a little money into savings.

So while the previous chart shows the single best label for each response, the next analysis allows for multi-label classification, capturing all of the themes embedded in what people shared. When viewed this way, a striking pattern emerges: across gender, race, party, education, and income, between 85–89% of Americans said they would spend at least some portion of a hypothetical financial windfall on a core life necessity.

The largest share pointed to paying down debt: credit cards, student loans, mortgages (42% at $10K; 40% at $100K). Others focused on paying utility bills (13% at $10K; 8% at $100K). A third group mentioned maintenance and upkeep: fixing or replacing a broken vehicle (11% at $10K; 14% at $100K), or repairing something in the home (7% at $10K; 8% at $100K).

This is not aspirational—it’s stabilizing. Even the differences between Americans at different levels of financial security are narrower than might be expected. With $10,000, those who are not at all financially comfortable overwhelmingly mention necessities (94%, compared to 9% discretionary). But even among the most comfortable, 78% still prioritize necessities, compared to 16% who would use the money for something discretionary. The pattern is the same at $100,000: the share using the money for necessities goes from 90% among the least comfortable Americans to 77% among the most comfortable.

If necessity versus discretion is one axis, there’s another that matters just as much: time horizon. Some necessities are about right now: a bill that’s overdue, a car that won’t start, a roof that’s leaking. Others stretch years or decades into the future: retirement savings, college tuition, home ownership.

At $10,000, a majority of the least financially comfortable Americans (59%) focus on immediate needs, compared to just 16% of the most comfortable. In contrast, the prevalence of long-term thinking increases from just 5% among the least comfortable to 24% among the most comfortable. The same pattern appears at $100,000. The focus on immediate needs declines from 40% to 10% at the highest comfort level, while long-horizon thinking expands from 14% to 36%.

Building Toward the Future

The single largest shift in Americans’ thinking when imagining the jump from a $10,000 to a $100,000 windfall is the desire for owning a home. At $10,000, just 3% of Americans say they would use the money to help buy a home. At $100,000, that number rises to 16%—more than a fivefold increase. The increase in home-buying responses is greatest among those with the least financial comfort: from 6% at $10,000 to 23% at $100,000. Among those who are already comfortable, mentions of homeownership rise from 3% to 10%. The further someone is from homeownership today, the more powerfully they reach for it when it feels even remotely attainable.

But homeownership is only part of a broader pattern. When Americans imagine having some financial breathing room, they are most often describing investment: in stability, in opportunity, and in the future they want to build. Many mention putting money into savings vehicles like CDs, retirement accounts, or high-yield savings. Others take a more active approach: more than a hundred respondents explicitly say they would start a business.

That same instinct extends outward. Giving increases as the windfall grows: 6% of respondents mention donating or helping others at $10,000, rising to 10% at $100,000. The recipients are often close to home—churches, children, parents, neighbors. But many also point to broader needs: dozens explicitly mention helping people experiencing homelessness. Some responses are deeply personal. One person describes housing a homeless brother. Two others talk about helping house their own children.

An extra $100,000 doesn’t guarantee a home, a business, or long-term security. But for many, it at least makes those things imaginable and once that hypothetical door opens, people move from patching what’s broken to imagining what could be built.

Final Thoughts

We asked this question to understand what people might want with fewer constraints. What we heard back wasn’t extravagance. It was steadiness. Yes, people want vacations. Yes, they want to treat themselves. But that isn’t the center of the dream. The dream is closer to home: opportunity, growth, and a sense of safety and security.

And that raises a different set of questions, not about what people want, but about what makes that possible:

• Why does something as fundamental as homeownership still sit just out of reach for so many and what would it take to change that?

• How much untapped potential—entrepreneurial, civic, relational—is sitting dormant simply because people don’t have the margin to act on it?

• And what would our communities look like if more people had not just enough to get by, but enough to look ahead?

Because for most Americans, the dream isn’t more. It’s finally having enough to exist comfortably or move forward with more confidence.

Just stable enough to build from.

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Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

It shows up in arguments about redistricting and campaign finance. In debates over lobbying, insider trading, and political donations. In reaction to local decisions—zoning changes, school board fights, contracts awarded behind closed doors. It’s used to describe everything from clear ethical violations to outcomes people simply don’t agree with.

The word carries weight. But it’s also doing a lot of work. Because when people think everything can be deemed corruption, it raises a more basic question: what do people actually mean when they use the word?

What emerges is a clearer picture of how people are interpreting power and fairness—what feels compromised, what feels functional, and how they’re deciding whether the system is working at all.

Seeing Corruption

Corruption shows up in headlines and political debates, but it also takes shape through the specific examples people carry with them—the stories they hear, the patterns they notice, the moments that confirm a broader suspicion about how the government works.

When we asked what people had seen or heard recently that made them think, “this is what government corruption looks like,” the responses were varied but often concrete: abuse of political power (11%), foreign wars (10%), or simply “everything” feeling corrupt (8%), alongside concerns about economic issues like inflation (7%), welfare fraud (6%), the Epstein files (6%), partisan blame toward Democrats (5%), abuse of enforcement power (5%), and election or voting issues (2%) or media retaliation (2%). A significant share explicitly mention Trump (26%).

These perceptions are widespread. A majority of people say corruption is very common (67%), with more describing it as somewhat common (27%). But views differ on where it shows up most. Some point to national politics (35%), where stakes and visibility are highest, while others see it as distributed across all levels of government (48%), though few believe it concentrates at the local government (only 3%).

What stands out is how people define the harm. It’s not just about illegal behavior, but about a sense that the system is not working as intended—whether that’s abuse of power (32%), leaders putting their own interests ahead of the public (28%), misuse of funds (15%), or influence from donors (11%). And when asked who is most likely to be involved, responsibility doesn’t fall in just one place. People point to elected officials (28%), political parties (22%), wealthy actors (17%), and corporations (9%)—suggesting that corruption is understood as something systemic, not isolated.

For many, concern about corruption isn’t abstract. A majority (51%) say it strongly influences their views today (another 34% say it has some influence), reinforcing skepticism and shaping expectations about what is possible. This concern also feels widely shared: 51% believe others are just as concerned about government corruption as they are.

When Government Works

At the same time, people aren’t only noticing what’s broken. Alongside concerns about corruption in government are moments—albeit less frequent—where the government appears to function as it should.

When we asked what people had seen or experienced that made them think government can work, many struggled to point to anything concrete: 43% said they had no example, with another 6% unsure.

Among those who did, the examples were often practical or situational—hypothetical reforms or ideas about how government could work (10%), local community efforts (9%), or positive views of the current administration (8%). Others pointed to accountability and transparency (7%), effective government services and responses (6%), or past administrations (5%).

But these moments are less consistently visible. While some people say they notice examples of government working regularly (7% say daily and 12% say weekly), many describe them as occasional (29% monthly) or rare (52%). That imbalance matters because what people see most often tends to shape what they believe is typical.

When we asked the most important signal that the government is working well, the answers were distributed: responsiveness to the public (24%), accountability (20%), adherence to rules (18%), transparency (17%), and fairness (13%). These aren’t abstract ideals—they’re observable behaviors people use to evaluate whether institutions are functioning as they should.

Final Thoughts

What emerges is not just distrust, but imbalance. People are more consistently exposed to signals of what’s going wrong than to signals of what’s working—even if both are present.

When we asked what would make the biggest difference in increasing trust, the answers again focused on conditions: clearer communication, stronger accountability, and visible consequences for wrongdoing. In other words, trust isn’t just about outcomes—it’s about whether people can see how decisions are made and believe the system is operating fairly.

So we’re left with a set of questions that go beyond identifying problems:

• What would it take for examples of government working to be as visible as examples of failure?

• How do you build trust in a system people believe is vulnerable to misuse?

• And what signals—consistently delivered—would actually change how people see the government over time?

There’s also a deeper civic implication in these findings. Trust in government shapes whether people believe participation actually matters. When institutions are seen as corrupt or unaccountable, civic engagement can start to feel less meaningful and less capable of creating change. For some people, that distrust fuels activism or protest. But for others, it leads to something else: disengagement, cynicism, or the sense that individual action won’t make a difference. In that sense, visibility matters not only for trust, but for democracy itself. People need to believe institutions can respond, improve, and remain accountable for participation to feel worthwhile.

Proof over promises.

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Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

Americans are noticing. A recent Pew survey found that nearly seven-in-ten Americans are worried about higher gas prices tied to the Iran conflict. But what’s particularly striking is how differently Americans across the political divide are responding to the sudden, sharp increases in gas prices nationwide.

Murmuration has been tracking public satisfaction (and dissatisfaction) with gas prices over time, and the data reveals two things happening simultaneously: rising dissatisfaction across the country, and stark partisan differences in how Americans make sense of the same, shared economic reality.

About More Than Gas

The chart above shows Americans’ level of dissatisfaction with gas prices starting in 2023. Overall, dissatisfaction now sits at 76% with just 6% of Americans saying they are satisfied with current prices. The start of the Iran conflict caused an immediate spike in dissatisfaction among all political groups, followed by continued, more gradual increases. Democrats report the highest dissatisfaction levels at 87%, followed by independents at 79%.

Republicans tell a more complicated story. In 2025, Republican dissatisfaction with gas prices fell dramatically when President Trump returned to office, despite relatively modest changes in actual prices. Since February, Republican dissatisfaction has returned to earlier levels, now reaching 60%.

The gap between Democrats, Independents, and Republicans is revealing.

The data suggest Americans are not simply reacting to prices themselves. They are also reacting through political identity, media narratives, and beliefs about who or what is responsible. For some Americans, rising prices appear to register first as a political interpretation before becoming an economic judgment.

And yet, material conditions still seem to matter. Even among Republicans, dissatisfaction still increased substantially alongside the latest price spike. The result is a public that is polarized in interpretation, but still responsive to real-world economic strain.

Final Thoughts

These findings matter because gas prices occupy a unique psychological space in American life. While most economic indicators are abstract—inflation is complicated, GDP is distant, interest rates can be invisible until they hit your mortgage—increases in gas prices are felt immediately.

People see them every morning on giant signs at the corner of their street. They become a running calculation in family budgets. They shape commute decisions, vacation plans, grocery costs, and perceptions of whether the country feels stable or unstable.

There are many ways to interpret this moment, but one question continues to sit at the center of it:

Voters may disagree about the causes. They may blame different leaders or policies. But the emotional reaction is remarkably similar: rising fuel costs make people feel anxious, constrained, and pessimistic about the future.

Filling Up, Feeling Down

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Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org

But most of us aren’t forming our views of “the country” in the abstract. We’re forming them through accumulation and algorithms…through what we see, the content we engage with, and what we assume about everyone else.

So this week, we stepped away from the big narratives and asked something more grounded: what are people actually seeing in their day-to-day lives? What moments make them feel like people are capable of goodness? How often are they showing up for others themselves? And what do they believe everyone else is doing?

Because if our sense of each other is built in small moments, that’s where we need to look to understand what’s really holding and what isn’t.

Experiencing Goodness

Even in a moment where broader narratives emphasize division and distrust, most people are still moving through life filled with everyday interactions where they regularly encounter others in unscripted ways. Many of these settings aren’t designed to produce connection or generosity, but they often do.

When we asked what they had seen recently that made them think, “people are actually pretty good,” the answers were often ordinary and close to home: someone returning a lost wallet, a neighbor checking in during a storm, a stranger stepping in to help carry groceries. But, the most common response was simply kindness to strangers (29%) followed by a more general sense of everyday positivity (20%).

These moments aren’t rare, but they aren’t always noticed, either. Some people say they see them often (33% say a few times a week), others say almost daily (19%), while another third describe them as occasional (32% say a few times a month). And where they happen matters. Most of these encounters take place in familiar spaces—neighborhoods (19%), public spaces (29%), or online (16%)—places where people cross paths without expectation.

What’s striking is the weight these moments carry. Eight-in-ten Americans say moments of “goodness” influence how they see others (30% a lot, 50% some). Even brief interactions can shift how people see others, softening assumptions and interrupting more negative narratives.

One of the clearest divides isn’t just in what people do but in what they notice. People who feel connected to their communities are dramatically more likely to say they regularly see moments of goodness, while those with weaker community ties are far more likely to say they rarely see them or can’t think of any at all. The gap here is staggering, with differences of 30 points or more between groups. Financial comfort plays a role, but it’s smaller. What stands out is how strongly a sense of community shapes not just experience, but perception itself.

Being the Goodness

If the first part of the story is about what people see, the second is about what they do. Because alongside these observed moments of kindness is a quieter, more personal question: how often are people showing up for others in their own lives?

We started by asking what defines a “good neighbor,” and the answers pointed to something simple but consistent: showing up, being considerate, and offering help without being asked. Not grand gestures—just a baseline of care that makes shared life feel possible.

Next, we asked people to reflect on their own behavior; most described helping others with some regularity (34% said daily, and another 31% said a few times a week). The majority of support flows through close ties (66%)—family, friends, and people within immediate networks like neighbors and classmates—rather than strangers (21%). That doesn’t mean broader generosity isn’t happening, but it suggests that much of what holds communities together is rooted in repeated, familiar interactions rather than isolated acts. Yet, as we showed above, kindness toward strangers is the most common example people point to when they think of examples of people showing goodness. Helping strangers may be more visible, more interpretable, and more likely to shape how we see people beyond our own circles.

When we ask people to compare their own behavior to others, another gap emerges. Many believe they are helping more often than those around them (29%)—that while they are showing up, others are doing so less frequently. This perception gap matters. Because even if people are consistently supporting those around them, believing that others aren’t doing the same can erode trust and obscure just how much quiet, everyday effort is already happening.

Final Thoughts

If everyday life feels disconnected, people don’t necessarily point to a lack of kindness—they point to a lack of consistency, visibility, and shared expectation. When we asked what would make life feel more supportive or connected, the answers were practical: more kindness and courtesy (23%), more spaces to interact (15%), and more helping / giving (11%). The most surprising was the 8% of folks who unprompted said using less technology or social media.

So we’re left with lingering questions we’re continuing to explore:

• How can we build community so that our perceptions of kindness grow?

• What could close the perception gap between what people do and what they believe others are doing?

• Is there something about small acts of kindness toward strangers that are uniquely contagious?

The answers may not be dramatic. They may look a lot like the moments people are already describing—just more visible, more frequent, and more evenly shared.

Every neighbor was once a stranger.

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Murmuration is a non-profit that organizes a network of partners and equips them with the insights, tools, and services needed to help communities build and activate the power to transform America into a nation where everyone thrives. murmuration.org