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Just the Facts – US Population: Steve Ballmer Talks Through the Numbers
Business Insider
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1 year ago
Watch and get the facts about the US population and how America lives. The more we know, the better voters we can be.
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00:00
Hi, I'm Steve Ballmer.
00:02
I spent 34 years growing Microsoft,
00:05
10 years owning the LA Clippers basketball team.
00:08
I love computers, data, and facts.
00:11
That's why I started USA Facts,
00:13
to help understand what our government is up to,
00:17
and what's going on in America.
00:19
I'll share with you the facts and data,
00:22
all from our government,
00:24
you make up your own mind.
00:25
In this episode of Just the Facts,
00:28
America by the numbers.
00:31
But first, a quick disclaimer.
00:33
As I talk, I do a lot of rounding of numbers,
00:37
but the data you see on screen will be more exact.
00:40
Things might've changed since I recorded this in mid-June.
00:44
I can't predict the future,
00:46
but I'll be reading about it when it happens.
00:49
So now, let's roll.
00:52
Ancient Greeks said, you must know thyself.
00:55
So let's get to know this great country we call home.
01:00
The United States of America is a vast country.
01:03
At 3.8 million square miles,
01:06
a square mile, by the way,
01:07
is about 484 football fields all crammed together.
01:12
We have the third largest country by area in the world.
01:16
Behind whom?
01:18
Russia.
01:19
And guess who else?
01:20
China.
01:22
Brazil.
01:23
No, the answer is actually our neighbors up north.
01:27
Canada is the second largest country by area.
01:30
Across our 3.8 million square miles,
01:33
we have 4 million miles of roads, 63 national parks,
01:40
and 37% of all land is owned by the government,
01:45
federal, state, local.
01:47
According to the U.S. Census Bureau,
01:49
there were nearly 337 million people in the U.S.
01:53
as of July 2024, which is 4% of the world's population,
01:59
which is just over 8 billion.
02:03
Now let's take a look at who we are.
02:05
22% of our country's population was 17 years old or younger.
02:11
36% were adults aged 18 to 44.
02:16
25% were 45 to 64 years old.
02:21
And 18% of us were over 65.
02:24
And I can say us.
02:26
And just think, in 1980,
02:29
seniors were 11.3% of our population,
02:34
and now account for 18%.
02:37
Wow.
02:38
And people under 18 were 28% back then,
02:43
but now it's down to 22%.
02:45
That's a huge change in the world of demographics.
02:50
Kind of blows my mind.
02:52
Meanwhile, the composition of U.S. households
02:55
has also shifted.
02:57
Married parent households have fallen
03:00
from 31% of U.S. households in 1980
03:04
to just 18% in 2023.
03:08
Wow.
03:09
That is so different than from my childhood.
03:13
At the same time,
03:15
the share of households comprised of adults living alone
03:19
without children increased from 23% to 29%.
03:25
That's also a big change in the world of demographics.
03:29
The percentage of married people with no kids at home
03:33
has stayed relatively stable between 28 and 29%.
03:38
Now, single-parent households with kids under 18
03:44
have also remained stable around 7.5%.
03:48
There are now 10 million single-parent family households,
03:51
75% of which are single mothers,
03:54
and 25% are single fathers.
03:57
However, in 1980, that dynamic was 90% single mothers
04:02
and 10% single fathers.
04:05
One fact that will likely ring true to many of you,
04:08
58% of men and 55% of women aged 18 to 24
04:15
lived in their parents' home in 2023.
04:20
For men, that's actually a six percentage point increase
04:24
since 1960, but the share of young women living at home
04:29
is up 20 percentage points.
04:32
Even more interesting is the 25 to 34-year-old age group,
04:36
where 20% of men live with their parents
04:40
up from 11% in 1960,
04:43
and 12% of women live with their parents
04:47
up from 7% in 1960.
04:50
That's really interesting to me.
04:52
Most of this growth has happened since 2008,
04:56
and people are getting married later in life.
04:58
The U.S. Census Bureau found that the median age
05:02
for marriage in 1980 was 22 for women
05:06
and close to 25 for men.
05:08
In 2023, it was 28 years old for women
05:13
and 30 years old for men, another big demographic shift.
05:18
Let's look at six different groups of people
05:21
based upon Census Bureau data.
05:24
First, let's look at people who identify as white
05:29
but not Hispanic, about 195 million people.
05:34
Then there are people who identify as white
05:37
who also identify as Hispanic.
05:40
That's over 56 million people.
05:43
Black people who identify as non-Hispanic, 42 million people,
05:49
and then black people who identify as Hispanic,
05:53
3.4 million people, Asians, 21 million people plus,
05:59
and all other people in the U.S., close to 16 million.
06:04
Here's a fun fact.
06:05
To follow the overall trends of population changes
06:08
between states, we can actually just look
06:11
at the number of congresspeople assigned to each state
06:15
and how that has changed over time.
06:17
Currently, every congressional district
06:20
includes approximately 760,000 people.
06:24
Since 1980, the biggest winners or growers, if you will,
06:29
have been states like Texas.
06:30
With an increase of 11 members of Congress,
06:34
the biggest losers relatively in population
06:37
are states like New York, who lost eight congresspeople.
06:42
Looks like a lot of people have decided
06:44
they prefer warm weather and sunshine.
06:47
Not me, I'll stick with Seattle.
06:51
Now let's take a look at education.
06:53
In 2022, among those 25 or older,
06:57
9% had less than a high school diploma equivalent.
07:02
28% of people had high school graduate
07:06
as their highest level of school completed.
07:09
15% of people had completed some college, but not a degree.
07:14
10% had an associate degree.
07:17
12% had a bachelor's degree.
07:21
14% had actually completed an advanced degree,
07:24
such as a master's, a professional certification,
07:27
or a doctoral degree.
07:29
In 1980, 17% of the population 25 years or older
07:34
had completed at least four years of college.
07:37
In 2022, 38%.
07:40
That's a big increase from my perspective.
07:44
Since 1993, 24% of people who identify as white,
07:49
but not Hispanic, had four years of college or more.
07:54
By 2022, that rose to 42%.
07:59
For blacks, it went from 12% to nearly 28%.
08:05
And for Hispanics, people identified black or white
08:08
as Hispanics, it went from 9% to 21%.
08:12
And Asians are now at 59%.
08:16
In 2023, more women had a college degree than men,
08:21
39.7 to 36.9%, so it's close.
08:26
But in 1980, men had a 7.3 percentage point advantage,
08:32
20.9% compared to 13.6%.
08:37
Let's talk about how our kids are doing in school.
08:40
Between 1990 and 2022, math proficiency increased
08:46
from 15% to 26% among eighth graders,
08:50
and from 13% to 36% among fourth graders.
08:56
I love the improvement.
08:59
I think the scores are overall lower
09:02
than at least I would hope for as a citizen.
09:05
Reading proficiency began being measured in 1992,
09:10
and has barely increased at all,
09:12
from just over 29% to 31% for eighth graders,
09:17
and 29% to 33% among fourth graders.
09:23
All test scores peaked between 2013 and 2017,
09:28
and have declined some since.
09:31
For example, fourth grade math proficiency peaked
09:34
at 42% in 2013, but now we see it at 36%.
09:40
To me, that's the wrong direction.
09:43
Here's my view.
09:45
As a nation, it just isn't acceptable where we are,
09:49
and there are a lot of factors that go into these scores,
09:53
not just what goes on in the classroom,
09:56
but we need to do better.
09:59
Let's take a bit of a look at what Americans do
10:01
for a living.
10:02
First of all, reference.
10:04
161 million Americans are working.
10:08
In 2022, there were 20.9 million people
10:12
working for our government.
10:13
79% worked for state and local government,
10:17
and 21% worked for the federal government.
10:21
I'm sure it won't surprise you that more Americans
10:24
are working from home post-pandemic than pre-pandemic.
10:28
In 2019, 6% of Americans worked from home.
10:33
In 2022, that number was 15%.
10:37
For those who still commute to work,
10:40
the average commute time is 26 minutes.
10:43
3% only take public transportation to work,
10:47
while 69% of people drove alone.
10:51
92% of households in the U.S.
10:53
had at least one car available to them in 2022.
10:57
Actually, 37% had access to two cars,
11:02
and 22% had access to three or more.
11:06
Let's talk about technology.
11:08
In 2023, 96% of U.S. households
11:11
had at least one type of computer,
11:14
and 92% had a broadband internet subscription.
11:18
Smartphones were the most common computing device
11:21
in U.S. households.
11:22
Uh, of course.
11:24
92% of households have at least one,
11:28
followed by 80% of households who have one
11:31
or more desktop or laptop computers,
11:34
and 64% with tablet.
11:37
Here's a fun fact.
11:38
Americans gamble.
11:40
We spent approximately 98 billion
11:43
on lottery tickets in 2022.
11:46
I found this surprising.
11:47
Massachusetts residents spend the most
11:50
at $970 per capita,
11:54
while North Dakota residents spent the least, just $37.
12:00
How about a little lightning round
12:02
of other interesting facts about America?
12:05
One, 16 million veterans in the country.
12:08
Two, 1.3 million active duty soldiers.
12:12
Three, 67 million people on Medicare,
12:16
while there's 75 million people on Medicaid.
12:19
42 million people relied on food stamps as of 2023.
12:24
38 million people, unfortunately,
12:26
were below the poverty line in 2022.
12:30
70 million people received Social Security.
12:33
Our life expectancy is about 77.5 years
12:37
for someone born today,
12:39
but the average age of death is 73 years.
12:44
1.2 million people were in prison in 2022.
12:48
That doesn't include people who were in jail,
12:51
typically for periods under a year.
12:54
America has 880 million acres of farmland.
12:58
That's the size of Texas times five.
13:02
In 2022, corn was our number one cash crop,
13:07
followed by soybeans, fruits, and nuts.
13:11
After oil and gas, civilian aircrafts and parts
13:14
are the country's biggest export.
13:16
Our biggest export specifically to China?
13:19
Soybeans.
13:21
And finally, a word on our democracy.
13:24
The 2020 presidential election
13:27
had the highest voter turnout of the 21st century,
13:31
with 66.8% of citizens over 18 voting in the election.
13:37
That's great.
13:39
As with past elections, a higher share of women
13:42
than men turned out to vote.
13:44
68.4% of women, 65% of men.
13:49
Voter turnout also increased as age,
13:52
educational attainment, and income increased.
13:56
Voter turnout was highest among those ages 65 to 74 at 76%,
14:03
while the percentage was lowest
14:06
among those aged 18 to 24 at 51%.
14:11
It's sure gonna be interesting to see
14:13
what those numbers look like this election cycle.
14:16
I've learned a lot from this.
14:18
I hope you have too.
14:20
I hope you agree.
14:22
The more we know, the better voters we can be.
14:27
We give you just the facts.
14:29
You decide what you believe.
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