Most Pay Credit Cards in Full

The 54% majority of Americans say they always pay their credit cards in full each month. Here are the numbers by age...

18 to 29: 51%
30 to 44: 45%
45 to 59: 44%
60-plus: 75%

Source: Americans' Financial Capability, NBER Working Paper 17103, $5

And the Winner Is...Guns

Question: "Which do you think is most important--to protect the right of Americans to own guns, or to control gun ownership?"

Protect the right of Americans to own guns
2011: 48%
2000: 29%

Control gun ownership
2011: 47%
2000: 66%

Source: Pew Research Center polls, reported in Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics

Saving for College

Percentage of Americans with dependent children who have set aside money for their children's college education: 41%.

Source: Americans' Financial Capability, NBER Working Paper 17103 ($5)

Bathroom Dangers

You've probably heard the rumor that bathrooms are the most dangerous room in the house. How dangerous are they? Inquiring minds want to know.

According to a CDC survey of emergency room visits, 234,094 people aged 15 or older were injured (unintentionally and nonfatally) in a bathroom in 2008--or just 1 percent of the 22 million injuries that year. Sixty-four percent of the injured were female, 63 percent were aged 45 or older, 81 percent were injured because of a fall, and 68 percent were hurt in the bathtub or shower. Only 23 percent were injured while on the toilet.

Source: CDC, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Nonfatal Bathroom Injuries among Persons Aged ≥ 15 Years--United States 2008

Renters and Cell Phones

Percentage of adults living in wireless-only households by homeownership status...

Renters: 50.3%
Owners: 17.7%

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, July-December 2010

Fewer Moving into Homeownership

Number of people who moved to become homeowners...

2009-10: 1.7 million
2004-05: 3.7 million

Source: Census Bureau, Geographic Mobility

Decline in Good Health

The self-reported health of working-age Americans has been trending downward for years, according to data collected by the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The 2010 data, released today, continues to show the downward slide in the percentage of prime working-age adults who say their health is "very good" or "excellent." The biggest decline has been among 25-to-34-year-olds, a 4.2 percentage point decline over the past 10 years...

Percent reporting their health as very good or excellent:

	2010	2000	change
Total	54.6	56.2	-1.6
18 to 24	62.6	62.8	-0.2
25 to 34	62.9	67.1	-4.2
35 to 44	60.0	63.2	-3.2
45 to 54	54.4	56.4	-2.0
55 to 64	51.6	49.1	2.5
65 or older	40.7	36.2	4.5

Source: CDC, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Prevalence and Trends Data

Americans Not Saving for a Rainy Day

Disturbing results from the 2009 National Financial Capability Study: Only 49 percent of Americans have an emergency or "rainy day" fund--an amount of money set aside that could cover three months of expenses if they get sick or lose their job.

Even more worrisome, a strikingly large percentage of Americans are likely to need a rainy day fund, according to the NBER report on the survey's findings (Americans' Financial Capability, NBER Working Paper 17103, $5). The percentage of Americans who had experienced a large decline in their income in the past 12 months ranged from 33 percent among those with a rainy day fund to 40 percent of respondents without a fund. Those are big numbers, and they reveal the vulnerability of many Americans to financial shocks.

The percentage with a rainy day fund ranges from a low of 31 percent among 18-to-29-year-olds, climbs to about 50 percent among 30-to-59-year-olds, and peaks at 64 percent among people aged 60 or older.

Unsustainable Costs

Percent change in the amount employees must contribute for private health insurance by type of coverage, 2001 to 2009...

Family: +99.5%
(from $1,741 to $3,474)

Individual: +92.2%
(from $498 to $957)

Employee plus one: +120.8%
(from $1,070 to $2,363)

Note: All figures are in current dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
Source: Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, Statistical Brief #325, Changes in Premiums and Employee Contributions for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance, Private Industry, 2001-2009

Sexual Identity of High School Students

In a survey of the sexual identity and behavior of high school students, the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System has released the following findings on the sexual identity of students in grades 9 through 12...

Heterosexual: 93.0%
Gay or lesbian: 1.3%
Bisexual: 3.7%
Not sure: 2.5%

Note: The survey asked high school students about their sexual identity in the states of Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and in the cities of Boston, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. Figures above are medians for the 9 reporting areas.
Source: CDC, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Sexual Identity, Sex of Sexual Contacts, and Health-Risk Behaviors among Students in Grades 9-12--Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, Selected Sites, United States, 2001-2009

Bet You Didn't Know

Percentage living in a metropolitan area, by race and Hispanic origin...

Asians: 97%
Hispanics: 93%
Blacks: 89%
Non-Hispanic whites: 80%

Source: 2010 Census

How Many Blog Posts Today?

This post makes it 1.7 million and one--worldwide, that is. So far today. Check out the Worldometer for the number of google searches performed today, tweets sent today, cell phones sold today, books published today, and so on. And in case you're wondering, there are 15,525 days left until the end of oil.

An Average Day: Snacking

On an average day, 90 percent of Americans aged 20 or older eat (or drink) a snack, with men consuming 586 calories and women consuming 421 calories. Thirty years ago, a smaller 59 percent of Americans snacked on an average day.

Source: USDA, Snacking Patterns of U.S. Adults (PDF)

Blacks Most Likely to Use Twitter

Percent of Internet users who use Twitter, by race and Hispanic origin...

Black: 25%
Hispanic: 19%
Non-Hispanic white: 9%

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, Twitter Update 2011

Oldest and Youngest in Congress

Year in which the oldest member of Congress was born: 1923.
Year in which the youngest member of Congress was born: 1981.

Source: Congressional Research Service, Membership of the 112th Congress: A Profile (PDF)

June 5, 1981

Thirty years ago this Sunday, the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published an article about five young men in Los Angeles who had been sickened by a type of pneumonia. This was the first scientific account of what would later be called human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. "The occurrence of pneumocystosis in these 5 previously healthy individuals without a clinically apparent underlying immunodeficiency is unusual," notes the report.

Since that day...
594,496 Americans have died of AIDS
1 million Americans and 33 million worldwide are living with HIV

Source: CDC, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

Are We Done with Boom and Bust?

Baby, that is. A look at the numbers by age coming out of the 2010 census shows uniformity in the size of five-year age groups below the age of 40. The number of people in each five-year age group ranges from a low of 19,962,099 (30-to-34-year-olds) to a high of 22,040,343 (15-to-19-year-olds)--or a difference of 2.1 million. In percentage terms, this is a difference of just 10 percent.

In 2000, the difference between the largest and smallest age groups in the under-40 population was a much larger 3.7 million--or a difference of 20 percent.

For businesses, the new uniformity in the size of age groups means one less variable to consider in their marketing strategies. Unless, that is, we are in the early years of a new baby bust.

Source: Census Bureau

Fat Workers

A recent New York Times article reported on a study linking desk jobs to weight gain. Over the past half century or so, as American workers spent more of their day sitting at a desk, their weight increased. That's the theory.

Clearly, workers are doing much less physical labor than they once did--at least some workers. And there lies the problem with the theory. Hispanic men, who are the most physically active workers according to the CDC, are more likely than the average man to be overweight (78 versus 70 percent).

Confederate Flag Not Popular

Percentage of Americans who feel positive when they see the Confederate flag: 9%

Source: Pew Research Center

How Much Money?

How much money do parents give their adult children? How many adult children receive money from their parents? These questions are answered in a new study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (An In-Depth Look Into Intergenerational Flows). Analyzing data from successive waves of the Health and Retirement Study (a longitudinal panel survey of older householders taken every two years since 1992), the researchers discovered substantial transfers of money from parents to adult children.

During each wave of the survey, approximately 20 percent of adult children living in another household received money from their parents, with $9,000 being the average amount received. Limiting the analysis to households that had participated in every wave of the survey, the researchers found that 61 percent of adult children had been given money by their parents at some point, receiving a total of $28,500.

The results show that parents give more to younger (adult) children and to children who are having financial trouble--such as those who have lost a job. These early parental transfers are "positively and significantly related with children's education and income class later in life," say the researchers.