Americans’ Civics Knowledge Declines on First Amendment, Branches of Government

Bottom Line: The 2022 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey shows a decline in Americans’ overall civics knowledge, the first drop in six years. The percentage of Americans who understand the rights protected by the First Amendment – freedoms of religion, the press, and the right to petition government, for example – has dropped, and just 47 percent of surveyed adults correctly identified the three branches of government, down from 56 percent in 2021.

The 2022 Annenberg Constitution Day Survey found that U.S. adults’ civics knowledge has fallen across the board compared to last year’s survey. For example, just 47 percent of surveyed U.S. adults could identify the three branches of government – down from 56 percent in the 2021 survey.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center surveyed 1,113 U.S. adults ages 18 and older between August 2 and August 13, 2021.

“When it comes to civics, knowledge is power,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s troubling that so few know what rights we’re guaranteed by the First Amendment. We are unlikely to cherish, protect, and exercise rights if we don’t know that we have them.”

Other results include:

• Americans’ knowledge of the five rights guaranteed in the First Amendment all showed declines. For example, just 24 percent of Americans named the freedom of religion as being protected by the First Amendment, down from 56 percent just last year.
• A majority of Americans – 51 percent – wrongly think that Facebook must not censor any opinion on its platform because of the First Amendment.
• One positive takeaway from the survey is that Americans in general recognize major rights protected in the Bill of Rights and other constitutional mechanisms such as the veto process.

Read the full report here.