Word: censuses
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After nearly two decades of free-fall decline, are more traditional American values making a comeback? According to a mid-decade report on American household characteristics issued last week by the U.S. Census Bureau, the signals are mixed. While some experts believe that families are stabilizing, the average household size continues to decline and the number of people living alone is up dramatically...
...surface, at least, the census statistics continue to show a dramatic deterioration in orthodox marriages. Between 1970 and this year, the share of married couples among the nation's 86.8 million households fell from 70.5% to 58%, replaced by an explosion of single people living alone. Some 20.6 million Americans now live by themselves, a 90% jump in one-person households over 15 years. Much of this is due to widowhood or divorce, as is the near doubling since 1970 of single people who head households. Single-parent families now account for 14.3% of U.S. households...
Which brings us back to asking why a ballroom contest is so popular. Census figures quickly dispel my first theory--that the median age of Americans is actually 73. Still, there is no other prime-time show so determinedly unhip. Where American Idol has Ryan Seacrest, Dancing has Hollywood Squares' Tom Bergeron. Where Idol's Simon Cowell snipes put-downs, judge Len Goodman has such quaint British diction you could imagine him reporting from London during the Blitz. The theatrics and costumes (former New Kid on the Block Joey McIntyre jived in a G.I. outfit) would embarrass an Ice Capades...
Their hand-to-mouth existence is not uncommon in Cambridge, despite the last Census estimate that the city’s median family income is nearly $60,000 a year...
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; New York Times; USA Today; drugstore.com USA Today (2); Wall Street Journal...