I think you mean that's what 1% would be of the entire adult population. 1% here repesents one percent of the volunteer population, which is a quarter of that, so 500,000+.
[WS:] Correct. The breakdown is the percentage of people who reported volunteering. I have also breakdown of hours.
As to John Thornton's post:
1. Playing sports, or for that matter doing anything for your own enjoyment, does not qualify as volunteering. Only unremunerated activity that would qualify as work. So if you play ball or cards, it is leisure, but if you organize a game or a tournament, that is volunteering.
2. The survey was quite representative, it was the Current Population Survey conducted by BLS, which doubles as the labor force survey and annual census "update" and has the sample size of 60,000 (for technical details see http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.tn.htm ).
3. I agree that most "religious" volunteering is really volunteering for social causes rather than for religious activities per se. It would be really nice if that effort were classified by the activity of the establishment where it takes place (e.g. shelter, hospital, school, etc.) just as paid employment is. But even with that in mind, it is really depressing that churches can act as conduits for these social activities, but unions cannot. Yes, there are the Unitarians and the Quakers, who are on our side, but they are the minority. Most of it is Catholic, mainline Protestant, and evangelicals who tend to be conservative, if not reactionary.
While we are at that, I recall results form another survey some time ago (GSS?) showing that unions are among the least trusted institutions in this country, far below churches, the military or even the police. It is depressing, indeed.
Wojtek