300 Million!

November 20th, 2006 at 05:03 am

Hey, I'm back (with greater excitement)! It was a hectic week at work. People tried to pull a fast one on me because I'm new. My co-workers stepped in to pull me out of the corporate swamp. Also, I made changes to next year's benefits selection (I'll blog about that soon).

There is an interesting comparison of 1915, 1967, and 2006 in

National Geographic magazine to show some of the ways US life has changed. The US population passed the 300 million mark this year. In 1915, it reached 100 million, in 1967 200 million. Some stats come at no surprise, but a few are intriguing.

US Population
1915: 100 million
1967: 200 million
2006: 300 million

Foreign-born Population in US
1915: 13.5 million mostly from
Text is Germany and Link is www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743550471?ie=UTF8&tag=photojournaja-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0743550471
Germany (that's 13.5%!)
1967: 9.7 million mostly from
Text is Italy and Link is http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743550439?ie=UTF8&tag=photojournaja-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0743550439
Italy (only 4.85%)
2006: 34.3 million mostly from
Text is Mexico and Link is http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1740594959?ie=UTF8&tag=photojournaja-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1740594959
Mexico (that's 11.43%! Surprise, we actually don't have as many immigrants as before.)

Life Expectancy
1915: 54.5 years
1967: 70.5 years
2006: 77.8 years (No wonder retirement age keeps going up!)

Annual Earnings
1915: $687, $13,284 in 2005 dollars
1967: $5,974, $29,589 in 2005 dollars
2006: $34,926

Women Working
1915: 23%
1967: 41%
2006: 59%

Registered Vehicles
1915: 2.5 million
1967: 98.9 million
2006: 237.2 million (That's 79.07%, pretty much everyone has a car. Too many crazy drivers...)

A Gallon of Regular Gas
1915: $0.25, $5.01 in 2006 dollars
1967: $0.33, $2.00 in 2006 dollars
2006: $3.04 (Surprise, gas price is actually not too bad, especially since it has been coming down to about $2.)

A Gallon of Milk
1915: $0.36, $7.22 in 2006 dollars
1967: $1.03, $6.24 in 2006 dollars
2006: $3.00 (Surprise, I always thought milk price is going up. But it's not as high as before.)

Children per Household
1915: 1.90
1967: 1.41
2006: 0.94 (A lot of only child!)

Posted in Life in the Garden State | 6 Comments »

6 Responses to “300 Million!”

janH Says:
November 20th, 2006 at 05:10 am 1163999455
1163999455

What cool stats! I love history stuff. Thanks for posting it!
PRICEPLUS Says:
November 20th, 2006 at 05:33 am 1164000800
1164000800

Those are great stats. I love factoids as they are, well, they are cool! I too thank you for posting apparently pretty good news!
tinapbeana Says:
November 20th, 2006 at 12:39 pm 1164026391
1164026391

very cool, jen! the phone company i worked for did something similar when we trained new hires, comparing item/salary costs from i think 1910 or something. LD calls worked out to be something like $10 per minute or something horrible like that!

for those that are interested in fiscal historical comparisions, try checking to see how the minimum wage has (hasn't?) changed over time. it's depressing and startling.
jersey jen Says:
November 21st, 2006 at 03:11 am 1164078661
1164078661

* janh

you're welcome! thanks for visiting!
jersey jen Says:
November 21st, 2006 at 03:11 am 1164078715
1164078715

* priceplus

you're welcome! thanks for visiting!
jen-taylor Says:
November 21st, 2006 at 03:14 am 1164078888
1164078888

* tinapbeana

no kidding, when i started college in 1998, it was $5.15 . . . and it is still $5.15 in 2006.

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)

Name:	*
Email:	Will not be published.
	Subscribe: Notify me of additional comments to this entry.
URL:
Verification:	* Please spell out the number 4. [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]

Jersey Jen's Money Crunch

. . . drowning in debt

300 Million!

6 Responses to “300 Million!”

Leave a Reply