As wages stagnate and income inequality grows, people can’t afford to spend time volunteering. This decline is especially alarming in rural communities where volunteer organizations and nonprofits fill gaps in America’s social safety network, the researchers said.

While UGA researchers first brought this trend to publication last summer, Rebecca Nesbit, one of the researchers on the project and a professor in the UGA School of Public and International Affairs, now says this issue is persisting through 2025.

“Economic disadvantage appears to compound itself: individuals in poorer communities volunteer less, weakening the very community-based organizations that might otherwise foster resilience,” she wrote. “These dynamics reveal a troubling feedback loop where civic disengagement and economic hardship reinforce one another.”

Bringing back a culture of volunteerism will take work, the researchers said. But it’s not impossible.

One key way to do that is for policymakers to support the use of federal and state grants to rebuild volunteering infrastructure, particularly in economically distressed communities, and provide financial support to keep these much-needed organizations running.

“Local economic conditions matter for volunteering. That’s something we can’t ignore,” Nesbit said.