Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Maybe Schools Are Not So Bad

Percentage of Americans who give
the nation's public schools a grade of A or B: 21

Percentage of public school parents who give
the school their oldest child attends a grade of A or B: 64

Source: Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools

How Does Your Salary Compare?

Now you can find out. Let's say you are a librarian in Chicago, and you are wondering how your pay stacks up against the wages of your colleagues in the metropolitan area. The answer is only a click away at the Bureau of Labor Statistics Wages by Area and Occupation web site. Click on "Metropolitan Area Wage Data for 375 Metropolitan Statistical Areas," scroll down to Illinois, then click on "Chicago-Naperville-Joliet IL-IN-WI." Once there, scroll down to "Librarians" in the occupation list (under Education, Training, and Library Occupations), and you will see you are one of 5,460 librarians in the Chicago metro area.

Librarians in Chicago earned an annual average of $57,560 as of May 2006. If you want to know where you might get paid more, click on the "Librarians" link, which will take you to a page revealing that librarians get paid the most in San Jose, California—an average of $69,360. (Of course, housing prices are higher there too.) Get fun facts like these for any occupation from this enormously entertaining site.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Wanted: Spouse with Health Insurance

Eighty-five percent of Americans have health insurance, and 60 percent are covered by an employer-provided health insurance plan, according to the Census Bureau. These figures are well known and somewhat reassuring.

What is not so well known is how few of us are covered by our own employer's plan. Only 32 percent of Americans have health insurance through their own employer. Everyone else is piggybacking, getting coverage through a spouse or parent and just a divorce or birthday away from having no coverage at all.

Source: Bureau of the Census, Health Insurance Tables

Friday, June 01, 2007

National Pride

Percentage of Americans who "strongly agree" that America is a better country than most other countries...

Aged 18 to 29: 25
Aged 65 or older: 52

Source: General Social Survey