According to an article by The Heritage Foundation, surveys typically find that those who practice Judeo-Christian faith traditions do better financially on average than non-religious people, all other things being equal. The General Social Survey found that in 2004, the average “religious person”—someone who attends a house of worship at least once a week—had an income 8% higher than the average person who attends once a year at most. Jonathan Gruber, an economist at MIT, found that the greater the proportion of population that shares an individual’s religion, the higher levels of income tend to be. The article suggested the reasons for this include the social connections available in communities of faith; the higher education levels typically achieved by religious people; religion’s general encouragement of entreprenuership, exercise of talent, and stewardship of resources; and faith’s natural promotion of constructive behavior.
