About The Moral Decay Index
Who we are, why we built this, and what we believe about honest data and American society.
The Moral Decay Index is an independent research and commentary publication dedicated to tracking the social and moral health of the United States through data. We believe that an informed citizenry is the foundation of a healthy democracy — and that honest measurement is the first step toward meaningful change.
Why We Built This
For decades, Americans have argued passionately about the state of the nation’s moral fabric — but rarely with consistent, transparent data to anchor the conversation. Politicians cherry-pick statistics. Commentators substitute anecdote for evidence. And the public is left with strong opinions and weak information.
The Moral Decay Index was built to change that. We identified eight key social indicators that research consistently links to the health of a society’s moral and civic life. We track them monthly using publicly available data from government agencies, independent research institutions, and established polling organizations. And we present the results honestly — without political agenda, without partisan spin, and without telling you what conclusions to draw.
We present the data. You decide what it means. That is the deal.
Our Core Values
What We Track
The Moral Decay Index currently tracks eight social indicators, each selected based on their consistent appearance in social science research as meaningful predictors of a society’s moral and civic health:
Church Attendance — Weekly participation in religious services, sourced from Gallup polling data.
Violent Crime Rate — FBI Uniform Crime Report data on violent offenses per 100,000 residents.
Divorce Rate — CDC National Vital Statistics on marriage and divorce rates nationally.
Teenage Pregnancy Rate — CDC data on birth rates among women aged 15–19.
Police Corruption — Federal civil rights investigations and documented misconduct reports.
Trust in Government — Gallup’s long-running survey on public trust in federal institutions.
High School Dropout Rate — National Center for Education Statistics annual graduation data.
Abortion Rate — CDC and Guttmacher Institute data on national abortion rates.
Our Methodology
Each indicator is scored on a scale of 0–100, where 100 represents maximum decay relative to historical benchmarks. The composite Moral Decay Index score is a weighted average of all eight indicators. Weights are reviewed annually and reflect the relative strength of each indicator’s association with broader social health outcomes in the research literature.
The composite score places America in one of four zones: Healthy (0–30), Caution (31–50), Warning (51–70), or Crisis (71–100). As of April 2026, the index score of 62.5 places the nation in the Warning zone.
Full methodology documentation, including data sources, weighting rationale, and historical trend data, is available to researchers, journalists, and members of the public upon request. Contact us at the address below.
An Independent Publication
The Moral Decay Index is an independently operated publication. We are not funded by political organizations, government agencies, or ideologically aligned foundations. Our editorial independence is absolute. If you have questions about our funding, methodology, or editorial standards, we welcome the inquiry — transparency is not optional here.
Contact Us
We welcome feedback, questions, data corrections, and suggestions for additional indicators. If you are a researcher, journalist, or educator who would like access to our full methodology documentation or historical dataset, please reach out through our Contact page.
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