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The US Census Bureau now considers the impact of food stamps on the poverty rate.
More than 16% of Americans now find themselves in poverty, which is the highest level ever, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
People are considered in poverty if they make $11,139 annually for an individual, or $22,314 for a family of four. Right now, 49.1 million Americans live at or below this level, nearly three million more than was initially reported this fall.
The revised number was determined by a new formula created by the Census Bureau that takes into account how programs like food stamps offset poverty and how increased costs of healthcare and housing impact it as well.
Will our children be able to care for the exploding senior population?
The share of children in the United States has hit a record low, even counting the children from immigrant families, although they are said to be the fastest-growing segment of America’s youth.
As the Associated Press reports, right now the share of children in the U.S. is 24 percent. That’s two percent lower than the previous low in 1990. It’s projected to slip to 23 by 2050 while the percentage of people 65 and older is expected to jump from 13 percent to 20. Compare those numbers to 1900, when the share of children reached as high as 40 percent, compared to a much smaller 4 percent share for seniors 65 and older.
Right now, the majority of kids in the United States tick off “white” on the little Census ticky boxes that ask about race and ethnicity. That’s expected to change this decade due, sooner than originally projected.
Falling birth rates among white mamas are part of the reason. The number of white children fell about 10 percent in the past decade, while the number of minority children has grown about 38 percent. Immigration also plays a role. The biggest increase was in the number of Hispanic children.
What will these changing demographics mean for your kids? They may affect education, for one thing.
According to the latest U.S. Census data, there are 85.4 million moms living in the United States. That’s a whole lotta mamas!
What are we all up to? The census has answers!
For starters, moms aren’t exactly an endangered species, but there are fewer of us than there were a generation ago. Today, 82 % of women ages 40 to 44 have given birth. In 1976, that number was 90%.
Not only are fewer of us having kids, we’re having fewer kids. The total fertility rate has fallen to 2 births per woman, a decline of 4% since 2008. The population is still expanding, but largely through immigration. Women with graduate degrees have a higher level of fertility than any other level of education, having 71 births per 1000 women.
Census data reflects diversity of new American family.
Census data through the end of 2010 shows that the population in the U.S. has reached 309 million. In 2000, the population was 281 million, an already enormous number of people at that time.
There are some really interesting things about that growth of nearly 30 million: more than half is due to growth in the Hispanic/Latino population and about 15 percent of that growth is with people identifying as Asian. Those two groups account for 71 percent of the population growth in the U.S. since 2000.
If these growth trends continue, some research shows that by 2050, the census will count a staggering number of people living in the U.S.: Continue reading »
Census forms started arriving last week, and they’re remarkably simple — just a few basic facts about every person living in the household.
But what if a member of the family doesn’t live in the household? Lisa Belkin at Motherlode has a freshman in college. When it came time to fill out her census form, her heart hurt a little when she realized she wouldn’t be counting her oldest child. Belkin writes:
Like most of you, I got my census form in the mail today. Being a nerd and married to someone whose job uses a great deal of census data, I will dutifully fill mine out tonight and drop it in the mail tomorrow. If you’re expecting a baby this month, though, you might want to wait.
See, the census really wants you to count every person living in your house as of April 1. That even means newborn babies and kids. Continue reading »
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