That 3% atheist figure is drastically lower than the global 10-15% and probably misleadingly low because identifying as an atheist on a survey and functionally being an atheist aren't the same thing.

I understand that no religion =/= atheist, but when you look at these other 'atheist adjacent' stats like "no religion", they don't reflect a population that's as religious as "3% atheist" would suggest.

We're probably just seeing problems with the word atheist in the US, not a true accounting of how religious people are here.