College Enrollment Declines in 2014

College enrollment fell for the third year in a row in 2014, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. Only 19.2 million students were enrolled in college in 2014, down from the 20.4 million peak of 2011. But there's more to the story: most of the enrollment decline since 2012 has occurred at two-year schools. Behind the decline is the improving economy, allowing many who were cooling their heels at two-year schools to go back to work.

College enrollment in 2014 (and numerical change since 2012)
All colleges: 19.2 million (-755,000)
Two-year schools: 4.8 million (-988,000)
Four-year schools: 10.7 million (+316,000)
Graduate schools: 3.7 million (-83,000)

Source: Census Bureau, School Enrollment

Fewer Are Reading Print Books

Book reading is down slightly from what it used to be, reports Pew Research Center, with print books accounting for all of the decline. Seventy-two percent of adults say they read at least one book in the past 12 months, according to Pew's 2015 survey, down from 79 percent in 2011. The percentage who read a book in print fell from 71 to 63 percent during those years. The percentage who read an e-book climbed from 17 to 27 percent, and audio book reading was about the same in both years at 11 to 12 percent.

Young adults are most likely to have read any book in the past 12 months. In the 2015 survey, fully 80 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds say they read a book in the past year compared with 71 percent of 30-to-49-year-olds and 68 to 69 percent of people aged 50 or older. Young adults are ahead of the other age groups in reading both print and e-books...

Read a print book (or e-book) in the past 12 months
Total adults: 63% (27%)
Aged 18 to 29: 69% (34%)
Aged 30 to 49: 63% (33%)
Aged 50 to 64: 59% (23%)
Aged 65-plus: 61% (15%)

Source: Pew Research Center, Slightly Fewer Americans Are Reading Print Books, New Survey Finds

Most Smokers Are Trying to Quit

Most smokers have tried to quit smoking in the past year, according to the CDC. Among current and former smokers in 2013, fully 66 percent had attempted to quit, which is defined as going one or more days without smoking in the past 12 months because they were trying to quit. By age, younger adults are most likely to have attempted to quit...

Percent of current/former smokers who attempted to quit smoking in past year
Aged 18 to 24: 73.2%
Aged 24 to 44: 68.7%
Aged 45 to 64: 60.9%
Aged 65-plus: 56.4%

Source: CDC, Trends in Quit Attempts among Adult Cigarette Smokers—United States, 2001-2013

Where Americans Grew Up

There's a reason why Americans are nostalgic for small-town life. The largest share of Americans (one in three) say that's where they grew up...

"Which comes the closest to the type of place you were living in when you were 16-years-old?"
16% in a city with a population of 250,000 or more
15% in the suburb of a city with a population of 250,000 or more
17% in a city with a population of 50,000 to 250,000
33% in a town with a population of less than 50,000
10% in the country but not on a farm
8% on a farm

Source: Demo Memo Analysis of the 2014 General Social Survey

Long-Term Care Policy Lapses and Cognitive Decline

Among men and women aged 65 who have purchased long-term care insurance, more than one in three will let their policy lapse before they die. Why do so many policies lapse? That's what researchers at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wanted to know. Their analysis shows that cognitive impairment is one important reason for lapsing. With age, some policy holders—the ones who will need long-term care the most—forget to pay the premium or no longer understand why they need a policy.

A higher cognitive score is associated with lower lapse rates, report the researchers. Interestingly, so is having a daughter—someone who can remind the policyholder of the importance of paying the premium. "Having a daughter is associated with a 14.3-percentage-point decrease in the probability of lapsing," the researchers report.

Source: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Why Do People Lapse Their Long-Term Care Insurance?

Cable Still Rules, But Trouble Looms

The average household spent an astonishing $723 on cable and satellite television service in 2014, according to the Consumer Expenditure Survey. That's 5 percent more than in 2013 ($691), 7 percent more than in 2010 ($675), 14 percent more than in 2006 ($633), and a whopping 64 percent more than in 2000 ($442), after adjusting for inflation. Cable ranks among the top 15 items on which the average household spends the most.

Although many have predicted the demise of cable as more Americans adopt video streaming, average household spending on cable and satellite service continues to grow. But another statistic reveals a troubling trend—a decline in the customer base. Only 70 percent of households purchased cable/satellite service during an average quarter of 2014, down from 74 percent in 2010. The decline is biggest among younger householders...

Percentage spending on cable/satellite service by age of householder, average quarter 2014
(and percentage point change since 2010)
Under age 25: 39% (-10.2)
Aged 25 to 34: 59%  (-9.1)
Aged 35 to 44: 70%  (-5.0)
Aged 45 to 54: 73% (-3.5)
Aged 55 to 64: 76% (-2.0)
Aged 65-plus: 78% (-0.1)

Average household spending on cable and satellite television service continues to rise, but only because a shrinking customer base is spending more.

Source: Demo Memo analysis of the Consumer Expenditure Survey

Professional Degrees Earned by Women

Women's share of selected professional degrees awarded in 2012-13...

Veterinary: 77.3%
Optometry: 63.4%
Pharmacy: 61.6%
Dentistry: 48.1%
Medicine: 48.0%
Law: 46.4%
Theology: 31.1%

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics

7% Victims of Identity Theft in 2014

Nearly 18 million Americans aged 16 or older were victims of identity theft in 2014, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics—7.0 percent of the population aged 16 or older and similar to the 6.7 percent who reported being victimized in 2012. Sixty-five percent of identity theft victims in 2014 experienced a financial loss, with a median loss of $300.

Identity theft is defined as the misuse of an existing account such as a credit card or online account (86 percent of incidents in 2014), the unauthorized use of personal information to open a new account (4 percent), or the misuse of personal information for fraudulent purposes such as getting medical care, housing, a job, or other benefits (3 percent). The remaining incidents involved multiple types of theft.

Only 8 percent of identity theft victims reported the incident to the police, but 87 percent reported the incident to a credit card company or bank.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Victims of Identity Theft, 2014

What Do Women Want?

Among women with children under age 18, the majority would prefer to stay at home and take care of house and family instead of having a job outside the home...

Women with children under age 18
Prefer to work outside home: 39%
Prefer homemaker role: 56%

Among women without children under age 18 at home, however, preferences are reversed...

Women without children under age 18
Prefer to work outside home: 58%
Prefer homemaker role: 39%

Source: Gallup, Children a Key Factor in Women's Desire to Work Outside the Home

The Marriage Market for 25-to-34-Year-Olds

Is there a shortage of marriageable men in the 25-to-34 age group? That's the question posed by Isabel Sawhill and Joanna Venator of the Brookings Institution, and their answer is yes, sort of, depending on how "marriageable" is defined.

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be a problem. There are 126 single men for every 100 single women in the 25-to-34 age group. But there are only 91 employed men per 100 women. Among college graduates, the number drops to just 85 employed men per 100 women because women in the age group are better educated than men. The researchers conclude: "Among the college educated, there is a shortage that is likely to discourage marriage unless women are more willing to 'marry down' or men catch up to women in terms of education."

Source: Brookings Institution, Is There a Shortage of Marriageable Men?

White Population Is Growing in Big Cities

In a reversal of past trends, the white population is growing in the nation's largest cities, according to an analysis of the American Community Survey by William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution. Between 2010 and 2014, reports Frey, the white population in the 50 largest cities grew by 491,494. Between 2000 and 2010, whites declined by 592,228.

White gains were greatest in two age groups: 25-to-34-year-olds and 55-to-74-year-olds. "Some of these gains are certainly related to the recent uptick in the attractiveness of cities to young adults and retirees," says Frey. But, he cautions, "city revival could be short-lived and related to the plight of struggling millennials."

Source: Brookings Institution, More Big Cities Are Gaining White Population, Census Data Show

Mining Big Data for Transgender Information

It's not easy to uncover information about the nation's transgender population. The Census Bureau does not include questions about sexual orientation or gender identity in the decennial census or American Community Survey. But there are other ways to shed light on the transgender segment—such as mining big data.

An economist at the Census Bureau, Benjamin Cerf Harris, has done just that. Harris mined the Social Security Administration's big data to determine whether transgender information could be gleaned from SSA records. By sifting through millions of Social Security files from 1936 to 2010, Harris located those in which a first name had been legally changed from male to female or female to male and also located those in which the sex-coding had changed. He found tens of thousands of transgender-consistent changes: 106,550 cases (at a 95 percent confidence threshold) in which a person aged 16 or older had legally changed his or her first name from one gender to another, and 28,234 cases in which there had been a first-name change and a sex-coding change. Overall, about 0.2 percent of files are what Harris calls "transgender consistent." The average age of identity change was mid-thirties.

The mining effort didn't stop there. For the transgender-consistent individuals who were still alive in 2010, Harris matched them to their census record and examined their response to the 2010 census question, "What is your sex?" He finds the transgender-consistents were more likely than non-transgender respondents to report being male and female (0.13 percent vs. 0.02 percent) or to report no sex at all (1.85 percent versus 1.13 percent). Harris also used 2010 census records to determine the geographical distribution of the likely transgender population.

Harris cautions that his research is not an attempt to estimate the size of the transgender population. Rather, it is an effort to show how big data can be mined to reveal something about the transgender population.

Source: Census Bureau, Likely Transgender Individuals in U.S. Federal Administrative Records and the 2010 Census

Household Income Rises in August 2015

Good news: Median household income in August 2015 reached a post-Great Recession high. August's median stood at $55,794, according to Sentier Research—1.1 percent higher than in July 2015, after adjusting for inflation. The August 2015 median was 5.0 percent higher than the August 2014 median and 7.6 percent above the $51,835 median of August 2011, the low point in Sentier's household income series. 

"The 1.1 percent increase in median household income between July and August 2015 is one of the largest month-to-month increases in income during the post-recessionary period," says Sentier's Gordon Green. We have now recaptured all of the income losses that have occurred since June 2009, when the Great Recession ended." Sentier's median household income estimates are derived from the Census Bureau's monthly Current Population Survey. 

Median household income in August 2015 was not significantly different (finally!) from the median of June 2009, the end of the Great Recession. It was still 1.5 percent below the median of December 2007, the start of the Great Recession. It was 2.7 percent below the median of January 2000. The Household Income Index for August 2015 was 97.3 (January 2000 = 100.0).

Source: Sentier Research, Household Income Trends: August 2015

Was College Worth the Cost?

Percentage of college graduates who "strongly agree" that their college education was worth the cost, by type of institution...

Total graduates: 50%
Public universities: 52%
Private, nonprofit universities: 47%
Private, for-profit universities: 26%

Source: Gallup, Recent Grads Less Likely to Agree College Was Worth the Cost

Households with Children, 2014

Only 28 percent of the nation's households include children under age 18. The figure varies by race and Hispanic origin of householder...

Households with children by race/Hispanic origin of householder
25% of non-Hispanic White households
31% of Black households
36% of Asian households
43% of Hispanic households

Source: Census Bureau, Families and Living Arrangements: 2014

39 Million Americans Speak Spanish at Home

Sixty-three million people speak a language other than English at home—fully 21 percent of the population aged 5 or older, according to the 2014 American Community Survey. Of those who speak a language other than English at home, the 62 percent majority speak Spanish. Here are the non-English languages with at least 1 million home speakers...

Language other than English spoken at home (and % who speak English less than "very well")
Spanish: 39.3 million (42%)
Chinese: 3.1 million (56%)
Tagalog: 1.7 million (31%)
Vietnamese: 1.5 million (59%)
French: 1.2 million (20%)
Korean: 1.1 million (55%)
Arabic: 1.1 million (38%)

Source: Census Bureau, 2014 American Community Survey

Immigration What Ifs

Nearly 59 million immigrants moved to the United States between 1965 and 2015, according to a Pew Research Center report. If those immigrants had not come here, the nation would be far less diverse. Pew calculated the racial and ethnic mix of the nation if immigration had been zero during the past fifty years...

• Non-Hispanic Whites would be 75% of population rather than the 62% of 2015 
• Hispanics would be 8% of population rather than the 18% of 2015 
• Asians would be less than 1% of the population rather than the 6% of 2015

During the next 50 years, continuing immigration will reduce the non-Hispanic White share of the population to 46 percent by 2065, projects Pew. The Hispanic share will grow to 24 percent. The Asian share will rise to 14 percent. By 2065, Asians will be a larger share of the population than Blacks (13 percent).

Source: Pew Research Center, Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S., Driving Population Growth and Change Through 2065

Do Americans Know How Much They Owe?

Americans are not dummies about debt. When researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York compared self-reported household debt in the Survey of Consumer Finances with debt reported by lenders to Equifax, the totals pretty much matched—with two exceptions: credit card debt and student loans.

Credit card debt was under-reported by 37 percent, according to the analysis, and student loans by 25 percent. While there may be methodological reasons for the lowballing of these debts in the Survey of Consumer Finances, it also may be that Americans are less knowledgeable about their credit cards and student loans than other types of debt.

"The poorer repayment rates we observe for uncollateralized debts may suggest an association between debt awareness and debt repayment quality," the researchers conclude.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Economic Policy Review, Do We Know What We Owe? Consumer Debt as Reported by Borrowers and Lenders

Living Alone Is #1 Household Type

The number of people who live alone has surpassed the number of married couples without children at home, making lone living the most common household type in the United States...

Percent distribution of households by type in 2015
28.0%: people who live alone
27.6%: married couples without children under age 18 at home
20.5%: married couples with children under age 18 at home
12.5%: female-headed families
  6.4%: unrelated people living together
  4.9%: male-headed families

Source: Census Bureau, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014

Women Surpass Men in Educational Attainment

The educational attainment of American women surpasses that of American men, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. In 2015, the percentage of women aged 25 or older with a bachelor's degree or more education climbed to 32.7 percent. Among men, the figure was 32.3 percent. Although the difference is small, it will grow in the years ahead as well educated younger women replace much less educated older women in the population. Here is the percentage of men and women with a bachelor's degree by age group (and the percentage point difference between women and men)...

Aged 25 to 34 (+6.2 percentage points)
Women: 39.2%
Men: 33.0%

Aged 35 to 44 (+5.6 percentage points)
Women: 39.0%
Men: 33.4%

Aged 45 to 54 (+1.8 percentage points)
Women: 34.0%
Men: 32.2%

Aged 55 to 64 (-0.4 percentage points)
Women: 30.7%
Men: 31.1%

Aged 65 or older (-9.3 percentage points)
Women: 22.5%
Men: 31.8%

Source: Census Bureau, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014