I got a spectacular birthday present and so did the few of my blog readers who love statistical data. The present was the 2006 U.S. Statistical Abstract.
I read it page by page just like some other fools read the encyclopedia and the dictionary.
This will become a whole series of “Data #” blogs on my findings.
First off, the total population of the U.S. passed 300,000,000 in early August of this year.
Is that number significant? Absolutely not. It is just a convenient number to remember.
It is also a reminder that the U.S. is the only large Industrial nation on the planet that has a growing population. We continue getting richer and healthier. Our reproduction rate is 2.0 (2.1 is the replacement reproduction rate), most Industrial nations have rates around 1.3. We owe much of our continued growth to our ability to absorb immigrants.
It took fifty years for the last doubling of our population and fifty years before that for the prior doubling.