Washington ? People in this country have been volunteering at record levels in the years following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but that voluntary service dipped slightly in 2006, a study found.

More than a fourth of the population, 26.7 percent, did volunteer work in 2006, down from 28.8 percent the previous year, according to a new report by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Kansas beat the national average, with more than 38 percent of residents reporting volunteer work. The state had the fifth-highest rate of volunteerism.

“We can’t expect every year to be a new high, so we’re not really concerned moving from ’05 to ’06 with a small decrease,” said David Eisner, chief executive officer of the corporation. “We would get concerned if that repeated itself year after year.”

An increase in volunteerism from 20.4 percent in 1989 to 26.7 percent in 2006 was heavily influenced by a sharp increase – almost doubling – in the volunteer rates of young people ages 16-19, according to the report, released at the start of National Volunteer Week.

Eisner called the young people “the 9/11 generation.”

“They came of age during 9/11. They learned new habits of responsibility, new habits of volunteering, and those have stuck,” he said.

About 61.2 million people volunteered in 2006, according to the study.

The top five states for volunteerism in the new report were Utah, Nebraska, Minnesota, Alaska and Kansas, with volunteer rates ranging from 45.9 percent in Utah to 38.3 percent in Kansas.

The lowest five were Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, New York and Nevada with rates ranging from 24.2 percent in Mississippi to 17.5 percent in Nevada.