E-Cigarette Use: Young Adults by State, 2017

Young adults are the biggest users of e-cigarettes but their use varies by state, according to the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Here are the five states in 2017 with the largest percentages of 18-to-24-year-olds who use e-cigarettes...

States with largest percentage of 18-to-24-year-olds who use e-cigarettes
1. Oklahoma: 15.4%
2. Wyoming: 15.2%
3. Arkansas: 14.7%
4. Tennessee: 14.5%
5. Missouri: 13.9%

Maryland had the smallest percentage of 18-to-24-year-olds who use e-cigarettes, with only 5.4 percent doing so in 2017. Vermont (6.1 percent) and California (6.4 percent) followed.

Source: CDC, BRFSS Prevalence and Trends Data

Below-Replacement Fertility in 48 States

The average woman in the United States will have 1.8 children in her lifetime, according to the age-specific fertility rates of 2017. This calculation, called a "total fertility rate" (TFR), is well below the 2.1 children the average woman would have based on age-specific fertility rates in 2007—the year the number of births in the U.S. peaked. A TFR of 2.1 is considered replacement level—meaning the population will neither grow nor decline, absent immigration. A TFR below 2.1, if extended for decades, will eventually lead to population decline.

Every state had a lower TFR in 2017 than it did a decade earlier. Here are comparisons between then and now...

• In 2017, only 2 states had at least replacement-level fertility (South Dakota and Utah). In 2007, more than half the states (27) had a TFR of 2.1 or higher. 
• In 2017, the lowest TFR was in Washington D.C., at 1.4. This was well below the lowest TFR in 2007, which was 1.7 in Vermont. 
• The highest TFR in 2017 was 2.2 in South Dakota, followed by 2.1 in Utah. In 2007, the highest TFR was 2.6 in Utah.  
• Between 2007 and 2017, the biggest declines in TFR (more than 20 percent) occurred in eight states: Nevada, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Georgia, and Texas. 
• Between 2007 and 2017, the smallest declines in TFR (below 10 percent) occurred in six states: Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, South Dakota, and North Dakota. 

In 2017, non-Hispanic White women had a TFR below the replacement level of 2.1 in every state, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Black women had a TFR at or above replacement level in 12 states, Hispanic women in 29 states.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Birth Data, Total Fertility Rates by State and Race and Hispanic Origin: United States, 2017 and Births: Final Data for 2007

Daily Consumption of Sugary Drinks

How many Americans aged 18 or older drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage every day? According to the CDC, a substantial 29 percent. The CDC defines sugar-sweetened beverages as regular sodas, fruit drinks, sweet tea, and sports or energy drinks. Excluded from the measure are diet sodas and fruit juice...

• By state: daily consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is highest in Mississippi (47.5 percent of adults) and lowest in Vermont (18.0 percent). 
• By age: daily consumption is greatest among 18-to-24-year-olds (43.3 percent) and lowest among people aged 55 or older (19.1 percent). 
• By race and Hispanic origin: daily consumption is highest among Blacks (39.9 percent) and Hispanics (36.3 percent) and lowest among "other, non-Hispanics" (21.2 percent), a segment dominated by Asians. 
• By education: only 15.5 percent of college graduates drink sugar-sweetened beverages every day versus 28.5 percent of those with some college, 35.8 percent of high school graduates, and 42.4 percent of adults without a high school diploma.

Source: CDC, Prevalence of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Intake among Adults—23 States and the District of Columbia, 2013

Payment Choice by State

A study of 2 billion retail transactions at a discount chain with thousands of stores reveals differences by state in the frequency with which customers pay with cash, debit cards, credit cards, or checks. Here are the states in which customers are most likely to use...

Cash: New Jersey
Debit: Arizona
Credit: Minnesota
Check: South Dakota

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Payment Choice and the Future of Currency: Insights from Two Billion Retail Transactions

Survey Tracks Changes in Health Insurance Coverage

In the field of demography, rapid change is rare. But rapid change is what we have today as the Affordable Care Act extends health insurance to millions.

According to the Urban Institute's Health Reform Monitoring Survey, the number of 18-to-64-year-olds with health insurance expanded by a substantial 5.4 million between September 2013 and March 2014. The percentage without health insurance fell from 17.9 to 15.2 percent during those months. But there are big differences in the percentage of 18-to-64-year-olds without health insurance by state, depending on whether the state chose to expand Medicaid...

States expanding Medicaid: 12.4%
States not expanding Medicaid: 18.1%

Source: Urban Institute, QuickTake: Number of Uninsured Adults Falls by 5.4 Million since 2013

States with Highest Domestic Migration Rates, 2012-13

The mobility rate of Americans has plunged over the past few decades, falling to historic lows in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Nevertheless, Americans are still moving and some states are attracting more of those movers than others. Here are the 10 states with the highest rates of net domestic migration (meaning more U.S. residents are moving into the state than out of the state per 1,000 population) between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013...

1. North Dakota

2. District of Columbia

3. Colorado

4. South Carolina

5. South Dakota

6. Montana

7. Florida

8. Nevada

9. Wyoming

10. Texas

Overall, 21 states and the District of Columbia had positive net domestic migration rates between 2012 and 2013. The five states with the largest negative net domestic migration rates were New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois, New York, and Alaska.

Source: Census Bureau, Population Estimates

Before and After ACA: State by State

The number of Americans without health insurance will drop sharply in all but one state after the Affordable Care Act goes into effect in 2014. The Urban Institute calculates the numbers, and its analysis shows that the decline in the number of uninsured will range from 25 percent in Vermont to more than 50 percent in eight states The only state in which the uninsured are not expected to decline is Massachusetts, where a version of the ACA has been available to state residents for years. Only 4 percent of Massachusetts residents do not have health insurance.

The decline in the number of uninsured would be much greater if every state had adopted the Medicaid eligibility expansion as was intended by the ACA. Mississippi, one of 26 states to reject the expansion, will see only a 29 percent reduction in its 544,000 uninsured versus what would have been a 54 percent reduction if the state had expanded Medicaid. In fact, 28 states rather than just 8 would see at least a 50 percent reduction in their uninsured if every state had adopted the Medicaid expansion.

Source: Urban Institute, Eligibility for Assistance and Projected Changes in Coverage Under the ACA: Variation across States

61 Million Do Not Speak English at Home

Fully 61 million Americans aged 5 or older speak a language other than English at home—a substantial 21 percent of the population. A new Census Bureau report (Language Use in the United States: 2011) analyzes the languages Americans speak at home, which range from Spanish and Chinese to Arabic, Hebrew, and Navajo. The report also looks at the English-language ability of those who speak other languages at home.

Among those who do not speak English at home, nearly two out of three (38 million) speak Spanish. Among Spanish speakers, the 56 percent majority speak English "very well." Other languages spoken in the home by at least 1 million Americans are Chinese (2.9 million), Tagalog (1.6 million), Vietnamese (1.4 million), French (1.3 million), Korean (1.1 million), and German (1.1 million). Most of those who speak Tagalog, French, or German at home also speak English very well. Most of those who speak Chinese, Vietnamese, or Korean at home do not speak English very well.

The report includes statistics for states and selected metropolitan areas. The Census Bureau also created an interactive language mapper that zooms in on areas as small as census tracts where at least 10 people speak one of 15 languages other than English at home.