Religion is big bucks — worth $1.2 trillion annually to the American economy, according to the first comprehensive study to tabulate such a figure.
“In perspective, that would make religion the 15th largest national economy in the world, ahead of 180 other countries in terms of value,” said Georgetown University’s Brian Grim, the study’s author.
“That would also make American religion larger than the global revenues of the top 10 tech companies, including Apple, Amazon and Google,” he continued. “It would also make it 50 percent larger than the six largest American oil companies’ revenue on an annual basis.”
344,000 congregations
To put a value on the work of the nation’s 344,000 religious congregations — representing all faiths — Grim looked at the schools the churches run, the soup kitchens, the addiction recovery programs and their impact on local economies. Churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship mostly spend locally — employing hundreds of thousands of people and buying everything from flowers to computers to snow removal services.
Grim came up with three estimates and settled on the middle one — the $1.2 trillion — as what he called a “conservative” appraisal of the work of religious organizations in American society annually.
Why crunch these numbers? Grim, an associate scholar at Georgetown’s Religious Freedom Project, said it’s good to know where religion stands. By one of his colleague’s estimates, that $1.2 trillion equates to about 7 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.
But Grim also wants congregations and clergy — and the society that benefits from the charitable work — to appreciate this generosity. In a culture in which people often hear much more about the evils committed by religious people — from sex abuse scandals to genocide — it’s time for some “balance,” Grim said.
Grim noted a recent Pew Research Center study that showed the religious are more likely to volunteer to help others and give more to charity on average than the nonreligious.
Without the charitable work of religiously motivated people, “I don’t think we would see all the good of society disappearing,” Grim said. “But I think it would be significantly less.”
Helpful programs
Grim’s study notes that congregations and religiously oriented charity groups are responsible for:
130,000 alcohol and drug abuse recovery programs.
94,000 programs to support veterans and their families.
26,000 programs to prevent HIV/AIDS and to support people living with the disease.
121,000 programs to train and support the unemployed. (RNS)
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