Volunteering, voting, attending meetings, and working with neighbors are by no means the only ways in which Americans engage in civic life. People also belong to and lead groups, exchange favors with neighbors, socialize with friends and family, interact online, follow the news, and try to influence the government. In 2008, the CPS expanded its civic surveys to assess many of these forms of engagement (see text box). Our analysis suggests that several of these forms of engagement are also related to unemployment change.

Because this report aims to estimate the change in unemployment between 2006 and 2010, a 2008 survey is a problematic source. One does not normally explain something that happens in a given year as a result of something that is measured two years later. Yet it appears the 2008 CPS may provide a reasonable estimate of the relative level of civic engagement in each state two years earlier. Civic engagement declined nationally from 2006-10, but states with relatively high civic engagement in 2006 still had relatively high engagement in 2008 and 2010. (8) Thus we have predicted unemployment change on the basis of the 2008 civic engagement measures, adjusting for economic factors at the start of the recession (2006). This analysis requires extra caution because the civic questions were not asked in 2006, but it finds that the following forms of civic engagement were significantly related to states’ resilience against unemployment: volunteering; meeting attendance; working with neighbors on community problems; contacting public officials; belonging to a service or civic group; belonging to a group of any kind; serving as an officer or committee member of a group; and registering to vote. (9)