In the years since the pandemic began, church attendance among young people has suffered a major decline, hastening a problem for religious leaders that was already bleak to begin with. That’s the takeaway from a study released late last week from the American Enterprise Institute and the University of Chicago.

The researchers found that religious identity didn’t change very much over the past few years but church attendance took a sharp hit among people under 30 during the pandemic. Before COVID hit, 30% of people 18-29 said they didn’t attend religious services (which was already remarkably high); by the spring of 2022, that number had jumped to 43%.

(follow link for charted results.)

It’s not surprising that liberals, singles, and young people shifted away from going to a religious service since that trend has been occurring for a while. What’s shocking is the speed of desertion and that fact that every single demographic is less likely to attend church now than before.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, 75 percent of Americans reported attending religious services at least once a year, including about one-quarter (26 percent) who attended regularly (at least a few times a month). By spring 2022, roughly two-thirds of the public reported attending religious services at least once a year.

Much of this decline in attendance was due to people completely abstaining from worship. The number of Americans who became completely disconnected from a place of worship increased significantly over the past few years. Before the pandemic, one in four Americans reported that they never attended religious services. By spring 2022, that share increased to 33 percent.