Party affiliation and general outlook 1991-2011

The proportions of Americans who are politically affiliated with one of the two major parties has been very stable over the last 20 years, at about 60% with a slight downward trend (+ marks and thick trend line in the chart below). Over the same period, the general outlook of the public has fluctuated wildly, with those who say the country is “going in the right direction” reaching over 50% at one point and falling 5 years later to 20% (circles and thin trend line). The public mood seems to be optimistic immediately following presidential elections (vertical dashed lines), and pessimistic immediately before them.

Data source: New York Times/CBS poll, April 15-20, 2011.

Medical Doctor degrees conferred in the U.S.

The number of Medical Doctor degrees conferred in the U.S. has remained unchanged since 1985 – about 15,000 degrees a year. Therefore, the number of MD degrees conferred per U.S. resident has fallen since 1985 by the same rate as the growth of the population – about 25% cumulatively.

That period has also seen a significant increase in the median MD earnings, as measured by the BLS (Current Population Survey – CPS, Weekly & Hourly Earnings): In the decade between 2000 and 2010, physicians and surgeons have seen their nominal median income increase 51%, while lawyers saw an increase of 37%, and the average worker saw an increase of 30% (series LEU0254541000, LEU0254536800, LEU0252881500). The 30% increase, incidentally, represents a 2.5% inflation-adjusted increase according to the BLS.

Data source: Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 2011 edition, Table 300 (spreadsheet); 1980 edition, Table 293.

Deaths breakdown by cause

Data source: CDC, National Vital Statistics Reports, Volume 58, Number 19. Deaths: Final Data for 2007. May 20, 2010. Table 10. Number of deaths from 113 selected causes and Enterocolitis due to Clostridium difficile, by age: United States, 2007.

U.S. state legislatures gender composition

Women are heavily under-represented in all state legislatures in the U.S. Averaging over all states, women make about 25% of state legislators. The states which have the highest proportion of women in legislature are Colorado, Vermont and New Hampshire. In those states 37% of the legislators are women.

Data source: National conference of state legislatures.

Media consumption

Average total media consumption time in the U.S. – about 9 hours a day – has remained unchanged since at least 1990, while TV consumption time – about 4 hours a day – has remained unchanged since at least 1984. Also essentially since 1984 unchanged are reading time – a little over 1 hour a day, and consumption of recorded music – about half an hour a day.

The most noticeable change trends during the period have been the decline in broadcast TV viewing, all absorbed by increase in cable TV viewing, and the appearance of internet media consumption, with an offsetting decline in radio consumption. Note that the internet media category does not include consumption of TV or text news online, as long as the sources of those are not internet-only organizations.

The media consumption categories not broken out on the graph are “video games” (about 14 minutes per day in 2007), “home video” (10 mpd), “movie in theater” (2 mpd), and “educational software” (80 seconds per day in 2007).

Data source: The Statistical Abstract of the U.S. of the following years: 1994 (Table 884), 1997 (Table 886) and 2010 (Table 1094) [Data text file].

U.S. military spending breakdown history

The share of military spending in the “personnel” category has dropped from around 40% in the early 70′s to around 20% today. The category that has grown most through that period has been “operations and maintenance”.

Data source: Historical Tables Budget of the U.S. Government, Office of Management and Budget, Table 3.2—Outlays by Function and Subfunction: 1962–2014. The transition quarter in 1976 was omitted as well as the year 1991 in which the “other” category was -$46 billion (in most years it is on the order of +/-$2 billion).

Change in U.S. household consumption patterns 1984-2007

Data source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey.

Religiosity in Israel

Legend: Shades of blue – Jewish (Ultra-orthodox [bottom], religious, traditional-religious, traditional-not-so-religious, not religious), White – no religion or atheist, Red – Christian, Yellow – Druze, Green – Muslim, Gray – unknown.

Data file: Israel religiosity.txt

Data source: Israel Bureau of Statistics, Social Survey.

U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan 2001-2010

Downloadable text files: Afghanistan data, Iraq data.

Data sources: Iraq – 05/2003 through 04/2010, Iraq Index by the Brooking Institute, May 2010 issue; 05/2010, various news reports. Afghanistan – 09/2001 through 11/2008, Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars by Amy Belasco, Congressional Research Service; 12/2008 through 11/2009, Troop Levels in Afghanistan Since 2001 by the New York Times; 12/2009 through 04/2010, read from Figure 1.13 of Afghanistan Index by the Brookings Institute, May 2010 issue; 05/2010, various news reports.

Updated to show data through Nov. 2010.

Food insecurity and hunger in the U.S.

Data sources: The Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 2010 (table 209), 2004-2005 (table 196), 2000 (table 233). Starting at 2006, the “with hunger” category was renamed to “with very low food security”. See the sources for definitions.

Updated (Jan 25, 2011) with 2011 Statistical Abstract data (Table 210) to show 2008 values.