A new survey released today by the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps shows 28.3% of the population, or 75.8 million people, in the U.S. volunteered with a nonprofit between September 2022 and September 2023, the Associated Press reports. That is a rebound since COVID-19 public health shutdowns tanked participation by almost 7 percentage points to 23.2% in 2021, the last time the survey was conducted. It is not a full return to pre-pandemic rates of volunteerism.
The survey on volunteering and civic life, conducted by the U.S. Census every two years, asks respondents if they volunteered at a nonprofit. It also asks if they informally helped friends, family, or neighbors, or gave to charity.
The free labor volunteers provide to nonprofits fuels a huge range of services across every kind of community in the U.S., with the survey estimating the value of a volunteer hour at $33.49, far more than the minimum wage in any state or major U.S. city.
Compared to other adults, people between the ages of 45 and 54 volunteered at the highest rates overall, the survey found, and more women volunteered than men, continuing a long-term trend. People with higher incomes reported volunteering with a nonprofit at higher rates than people with lower incomes. Many more people, or 54.3% of people in the U.S., helped out informally.
For the first time this year, the volunteerism survey asked people to report if their volunteering took place at least in part virtually, and 18% of volunteers said it had.
