Sunday, May 13, 2007

INDICATORS


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DIVORCE RATE LOWEST SINCE 1970

AP - The national per capita divorce rate has declined steadily since
its peak in 1981 and is now at its lowest level since 1970. . . Some
experts say relationships are as unstable as ever - and divorces are
down primarily because more couples live together without marrying.
Other researchers have documented what they call "the divorce divide,"
contending that divorce rates are indeed falling substantively among
college-educated couples but not among less- affluent, less-educated
couples. . . America's divorce rate began climbing in the late 1960s and
skyrocketed during the '70s and early '80s, as virtually every state
adopted no-fault divorce laws. The rate peaked at 5.3 divorces per 1,000
people in 1981. But since then it's dropped by one-third, to 3.6. That's
the lowest rate since 1970.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8P1MG601&show_article=1

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INCOME GAP HIGHEST SINCE DEPRESSION

NYT - Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top one
percent of Americans --- those with incomes that year of more than
$348,000 --- receiving their largest share of national income since
1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows. The top ten percent,
roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income
share not seen since before the Depression.

While total reported income in the United States increased almost nine
percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available,
average incomes for those in the bottom 90% dipped slightly compared
with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively
enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per
person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person
in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980. . .

The analysis by the two professors showed that the top ten percent of
Americans collected 48.5 percent of all reported income in 2005. That is
an increase of more than two percentage points over the previous year
and up from roughly 33% in the late 1970s. The peak for this group was
49.3 percent in 1928.

The top one percent received 21.8 percent of all reported income in
2005, up significantly from 19.8 percent the year before and more than
double their share of income in 1980. The peak was in 1928, when the top
one percent reported 23.9 percent of all income.

The top tenth of a percent and top one-hundredth of a percent recorded
even bigger gains in 2005 over the previous year. Their incomes soared
by about a fifth in one year, largely because of the rising stock market
and increased business profits. The top tenth of a percent reported an
average income of $5.6 million, up $908,000, while the top one-hundredth
of a percent had an average income of $25.7 million, up nearly $4.4
million in one year.

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