Stats And More Stats

I have always enjoying looking at data and stats.  Looking at the stats and trying to understand what it means.  When I was a kid, it was eagerly going through the baseball stats.  In those days they only published all the stats once a week in the Sunday paper or in the weekly issue of The Sporting News.  As I got older my interests expanded.  I used to read the World Almanac every year and also discovered the Statistical Abstract of the United States along the way.

I came across the 2011 edition of The Statistical Abstract the other day and several interesting tidbits.

• 2.1% of households earn over $250,000.  However, 3.4% of Asians exceed this level of income, 2.3% of Whites, .8% of Hispanics and .5% of Blacks.  In total, 2.5 million households earn over $250,000 in the U.S.
• 24 million households earn more than $100,000.  This is about 20% of all households.  However, 30% of Asian households are doing better than this.  Only 10% of Blacks bring in this much.
• The top 5% of households ($180,000 or more of income) earned 21.5% of aggregate income.  This is down from the 22.1% the top 5% earned in 2000.  This seems to counter the argument that the "rich"benefited from the Bush years.
• 29.5% of Americans 25 years and over have graduated from college.  29.9% of Whites, 52.3% Asians, 13.2% Hispanics and 19.3% Blacks.  In 1970, only 4.4% of Blacks were college graduates and only 31% were high school graduates compared to 84% today.  This is major progress. 
• In 1960, we spent $27 billion on all health care expenditures in the country.  50% of this amount was paid out of pocket by consumers.  In 2010, we spent $2.6 trillion and only 11% was out of pocket.
• $114 billion was spent on gambling in 2008.  This is almost 5 times what was spent in 1990 (in real terms).  To put this in perspective, we s only spent $7 billion on museums and libraries, $10 billion at motion picture theaters, $21 billion on spectator sports and $16 billion on all other live entertainment.
• We spent 3 times as much on recreation in 2008 as we did in 1990 (in real terms).  
• 17% of the population moved to a new residence at some point in 1981.  Only 12% moved in 2009.  26% of 25-29 year group moved in 2009 but only 4% of those 85 years and older.  The West is the most mobile (15%) and the Northeast is the least mobile (8%).