The Pew Research Center has come out with a new study of American Muslims (the previous study was in 2007). Admittedly I only scanned the summary, but did go to the original report to check a few things which I’ll tell you about below.
Pew says basically Muslims are assimilating and are just your average happy-go-lucky Americans (sorta like American Christians).
The study entitled, ‘Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism,’ tells us there are 1.8 million Muslim adults, 2.75 million of all ages in the US and that number is up by a whopping 400,000 since 2007.
Based on data from the survey, in combination with U.S. Census data, Pew Research Center demographers estimate that there are about 1.8 million Muslim adults and 2.75 million Muslims of all ages (including children under 18) living in the United States in 2011. This represents an increase of roughly 300,000 adults and 100,000 Muslim children since 2007, when Pew Research demographers used similar methods to calculate that there were about 1.5 million Muslim adults (and 2.35 million Muslims of all ages) in the U.S.
By the way, since the population increase involved 300,000 Muslim adults that means at minimum we admitted 300,000 Muslim immigrants since 2007. I say “at minimum” because there are many thousands more who came illegally and are now hiding in the shadows.
Then we are told that ONLY 19% believe violence is justified sometimes to defend Islam. So using only the adult head count—1.8 million times 19% equals only 342,000 American Muslims could justify violence sometimes!
About eight-in-ten American Muslims (81%) say that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are never justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies.
If we take 19% (who think violence is O.K. sometimes) of the 300,000 Muslim immigrants since 2007 then 5,700 of those immigrants think violence is justified sometimes. However, I bet that number is low because you can be sure that most of the 300,000 immigrants refused to answer any questions from some Pew researcher probably figuring it was the FBI calling!
Pollsters also asked how many have a favorable view of al-Qaeda and found only 5% admitting to some sympathy there. Again, 5% of 1.8 million means that 90,000 think favorably of al-Qaeda. Wow! Only 90,000 (and those are the ones who admit it!).
Muslim Americans continue to express extremely negative views of al Qaeda: Just 5% have a very or somewhat favorable opinion of al Qaeda. [Don’t you just love how Pew reports this!—ed]
When you go look at the report and the methodology, I think you will be struck by the same thing I was—-how many more radical Muslims simply hung up the phone on the researchers? The questions are many and probing and surely only the most moderate and Americanized Muslims (who speak English well) would even answer them, thus skewing the results right out of the box.
Here are a few other things that jumped out at me in my quick reading of the results:
Most Muslims came to the US in the last ten years:
Most of the foreign-born Muslims came to the United States after 2000 (40%) or during the 1990s (31%). An additional 16% arrived in the 1980s. Just 12% arrived before 1980.
They are poorer then Americans:
But differences emerge in the middle of the scale: 40% of Muslim Americans report family incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, compared with 48% of the general public. And a higher percentage of Muslim Americans than the general public report that their annual household earnings are less than $30,000 (45% among Muslims, 36% among the general public).
Unemployment is higher:
But underemployment is more common among Muslims than in the general public; 29% of Muslims are either unemployed and looking for work or working part-time but would prefer to have full-time employment, compared with 20% of adults nationwide who are in these circumstances.
There might be questions about welfare usage but I didn’t see them in my first quick look. They did ask if Muslims recycle! That is very important to know. If you see welfare usage stats, direct me to them.
Then here is one of the most telling portions of this whole report! This is what they say about the Muslim fertility rate (emphasis mine):
The survey also finds that Muslims in the U.S. tend to have somewhat higher fertility rates than the general public. Among women ages 40 to 59, who largely have completed their childbearing years, Muslim women report having had an average of 2.8 children each, compared with 2.1 among all U.S. women. In general, the pattern of higher fertility among Muslim Americans is similar to that seen among many other immigrant groups in the U.S. [So what is the fertility rate????—ed]
I went to the full report to see if they were hiding the numbers for the fertility rate for the younger Muslim women in their childbearing years and could not find anything other than this stat for the old women. Who the h*** cares about what the old women are reporting. How many babies are the young women reporting? If any readers find the number for the Muslim fertility rate in this report—for the women under 40—please direct us to it!
Readers, this is the KEY concern in the immigration battle going on in Europe—will Europe become a Muslim continent because Muslim population exceeds the British, French, Dutch, German and Spanish native populations through immigration and through higher fertility rates?
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