The National Data Book

The US Census Bureau has released the 2007 statistical abstract. "The Statistical Abstract of the United States, published since 1878, is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States."

The full report with all tables has roughly 1,400 pages, and is available online. You find the abstract on this website.

Some interesting statistics:

• The 2005 population of US residents is ~ 296,410,000 (Table 2).



• The number of admitted immigrants increased from 2004 to 2005 and exceeded the level from 2001, after a significant drop in 2003 (Table 6).



• 15.7% of US citizens (11.2% of children) have no health coverage (numbers from 2004). The rate of non-covered persons is the highest in Texas (25% total /21.4% children), followed by New Mexico (21%/15.3%) and Florida (19.9%/15.1%) (Table 145).



• The most dangerous home furnishing item is the bed. In 2004 it caused 518,441 injuries. Also interesting: 121,094 people suffered injuries caused by their footwear. The statistic counts emergency room treated cases nationwide in 2004 (Table 173).



• The number of reported cases of AIDS decreased slightly from 2003 to its 2004 value of 44,108 (Table 175).



• South Dakota is the only state that did not report any case of Syphilis in 2004 (Table 176).



• The percentage of current cigarette smokers decreased from 2000 to 2004, the average value in 2004 was 20.8%. From the listed groups, black women have the lowest percentage (16.0%) of smokers (Table 191).



• 7.9 % of US citizens age 12 and older classify themselves as 'current users of illicit drugs'. The caption says 'Current users are those who used drugs at least once within month prior to this study'. (Table 194)



• 65.3 % of US citizens are overweight. The statistics I printed has a chocolate smear. (Table 198).



• 2004 in the land of plenty: 13,494,000 households in the US were food insecure. The number of households with hunger among children raised from 0.5 % in 2003 to 0.7 % in 2004 (Table 2004). Though recently the department of agriculture has defined hunger as a non-existent state, see also 'Very low food security'.



• The average US citizen consumed 24.6 gallons of coffee, and 25.2 gallons of beer in 2004 (Table 201).



• 74.1% of doctorates in physical sciences (astronomy, physics and chemistry) are male, 42.0% are foreign citizens, 79.1% are white (status 2004, Table 789).



• In the last quarter of 2005, 22.5% of flights arrived late (more than 15 min) at major US airports. The worst airport is Newark International with 41.9% (Table 1055).



• 6,894 people filed consumer complaints against US airlines in 2005 (Table 1056).



• The number of alternative fueled vehicles in use increased slightly from 2003 to 2004 (Table 1075).



• 42,636 people died in, or as a cause of car accidents in 2004 (Table 1083).



• The median income of households in 2004 was US$ 38,453. The median income White only was $40,469, Black only $23,372. 15.5% of all households have an income under $15.000, and 15.7% have an income over $100.000. (Table 671 and 672).



• The medium household income is the highest in Connecticut with $60,528, and the lowest in West Virginia with $31,504 (Table 687).



• 36,997,000 people (12.7%) live below poverty level, status 2004 (Table 692).



• The US counts 3,510,000 top wealth holders with net worth of $ 1 Million or more. Most of which live in California, followed by New York and Florida (Table 700).

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TAGS: STATISTICS, POVERTY, USA