Spring 1990

ARTICLE TOOLS

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A column of current statistics selected especially for Christian communicators

Ratio of lawyers to the total U.S. population: 1:323

Ratio of ministers to the total U.S. population: 1:714

Percentage of U.S. citizens who favor state restrictions that would require parental consent before a teenager has an abortion: 72

Who favor restrictions that would require doctors to inform patients about alternatives: 81

Pounds of trash produced by an average American, per day, in 1960: 2.9

Today: 5

Estimated cost of raising a first child, born in 1988, to age 17: $176,674

Percentage of Americans who are generally satisfied with their jobs: 68

With their financial situation: 78

With their family life: 71

Percentage of the workday that Americans spend goofing off: 32

Number of U.S. Sunday school students each week: 36 million

Total length of all U.S. interstate highways, in miles: 44,328

Total length of all roads built during the Roman Empire, in miles: 49,000

Percentage of U.S. mail that was third-class (commonly called "junk mail"), in 1945: 14

Percentage today: 39

Number of babies conceived in the U.S. in 1988 with sperm from anonymous donors: 30,000

What do people consider the greatest source of pleasure in their lives?

According to a 1989 study conducted for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Corporation, the overwhelming answer is family, selected by 63 percent of respondents.

Trailing far behind, receiving only a tenth of that response, were religious involvement (8 percent), work (6 percent), and friends (6 percent). Comments Dr. Lee Salk, clinical professor of psychology at Cornell, who interpreted the data: "Most Americans think of their families as the most important things in their lives."

- Reported in USA Today, 10/10/89

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