Quote from Lucrum:
Is there some way to improve this number? We got roughly 12 million illegals that they can have.
I don't want ANY more migrants dave.Quote from bigdavediode:
If you want more first-world migrants then the US will have to be more competitive for quality of life stats (whatever measures you use). People from areas with five weeks of annual vacation per year are not likely to want to immigrate for work at lower pay and less vacation.
Quote from bigdavediode:
I found the following statistics interesting.
* The U.S. is the ONLY country in the Americas without a national paid parental leave benefit. The average is over 12 weeks of paid leave anywhere other than Europe and over 20 weeks in Europe.
* Zero industrialized nations are without a mandatory option for new parents to take parental leave. That is, except for the United States.
American work ethic
American Average Work Hours:
* At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not.
* In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.
* According to the ILO, âAmericans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers.â
* Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, itâs just not the average American worker.
American Paid Vacation Time & Sick Time:
* There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States.
* The U.S. remains the only industrialized country in the world that has no legally mandated annual leave.
* In every country included except Canada and Japan (and the U.S., which averages 13 days/per year), workers get at least 20 paid vacation days. In France and Finland, they get 30 â an entire month off, paid, every year.
* Then thereâs this depressing graph on average paid vacation time in industrialized countries:
<img src="http://20somethingfinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/American-paid-vacations2.jpg>
http://20somethingfinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/American-paid-vacations2.jpg
Quote from Free Thinker:
i found these stats interesting. most of these happened during that last period of republican control of government.
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The following are 24 statistics about the United States economy that are almost too embarrassing to admitâ¦.
#1 Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. In 2010, the United States has fallen to seventh.
#2 The United States once had the highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees in the world. Today, the U.S. has fallen to 12th.
#3 In the 2009 "prosperity index" published by the Legatum Institute, the United States was ranked as just the ninth most prosperous country in the world. That was down five places from 2008.
#4 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.
#5 The economy of India is projected to become larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2050.
#6 One prominent economist now says that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.
#7 According to a new study conducted by Thompson Reuters, China could become the global leader in patent filings by next year.
#8 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. Approximately 75 percent of those factories employed at least 500 workers while they were still in operation.
#9 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#10 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.
#11 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented only 11.5 percent.
#12 The television manufacturing industry began in the United States. So how many televisions are manufactured in the United States today? According to Princeton University economist Alan S. Blinder, the grand total is zero.
#13 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#14 Back in 1980, the United States imported approximately 37 percent of the oil that we use. Now we import nearly 60 percent of the oil that we use.
#15 The U.S. trade deficit is running about 40 or 50 billion dollars a month in 2010. That means that by the end of the year approximately half a trillion dollars (or more) will have left the United States for good.
#16 Between 2000 and 2009, Americaâs trade deficit with China increased nearly 300 percent.
#17 Today, the United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that China spends on goods from the United States.
#18 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.
#19 American 15-year-olds do not even rank in the top half of all advanced nations when it comes to math or science literacy.
#20 Median household income in the U.S. declined from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009. That was the second yearly decline in a row.
#21 The United States has the third worst poverty rate among the advanced nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
#22 Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power.
#23 U.S. government spending as a percentage of GDP is now up to approximately 36 percent.
#24 The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government public debt will hit 716 percent of GDP by the year 2080
Quote from Ricter:
"Since 1979, hourly earnings for 80 percent of American workers (those in private-sector, nonsupervisory jobs) have risen by just 1 percent, after inflation... For male workers, the average wage has actually slid by 5 percent since 1979. Worker productivity, meanwhile, has climbed 60 percent."
"From 1979 to 2005, a period when national output more than doubled, after-tax incomes inched up just 6 percent for the bottom fifth of American households after accounting for inflation, while it rose 21 percent for the middle fifth. For the top fifth, income jumped 80 percent and for the top 1 percent it more than tripled..."
From The Big Squeeze - Tough Times For The American Worker. Steven Greenhouse. 2008.
Quote from phenomena:
I agree. Limit 3rd world immigration. Encourage upper classes to breed more. Discourage lower classes from breeding more. Kill the federal dept of education which was founded in 1979 ( corresponds to the beginning of our declining academic figures). Encourage university. Specifically the study of medicine, science, and technology. Reduce tuition for medical and/or technological studies in all public universities. End cap gains tax, it is income, tax it like any other income. Lower corporate tax dramatically, it's higher than anywhere else in the developed world other than Japan. Cut size of federal government by 50%. Allow local governments to have greater influence. A la Switzerland and it's Cantonal system. Much like our system before our fed turned into the leviathan it is today. This would be a good start.
Quote from bigdavediode:
Ah, you mean like return to the tax and immigration system under Reagan. I enjoyed your addition of eugenics in there -- it's probably about time that made a comeback since the 40's was so long ago.