Census: Recession had sweeping impact on US life

[marmar]

Census: Recession had sweeping impact on US life
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON – The recession is profoundly disrupting American life: More people are delaying marriage and home-buying, turning to carpools yet getting stuck in ever-worse traffic, staying put rather than moving to new cities.

A broad array of U.S. census data, for release on Tuesday, also shows a dip in the foreign-born population last year, to under 38 million after it reached an all-time high in 2007. This was due to declines in low-skilled workers from Mexico searching for jobs in Arizona, Florida and California.

Health coverage swung widely by region, based partly on levels of unemployment. Massachusetts, with its universal coverage law, had fewer than one in 20 uninsured residents — the lowest in the nation. Texas had the highest share, at one in four, largely because of illegal Hispanic immigrants excluded from government-sponsored and employer-provided plans.

Demographers said the latest figures were striking confirmation of the social impact of the economic decline as it hit home in 2008. Findings come from the annual American Community Survey, a sweeping look at life built on information from 3 million households.

Preliminary data earlier this year found that many Americans were not moving, staying put in big cities rather than migrating to the Sunbelt because of frozen lines of credit. Mobility is at a 60-year low, upending population trends ahead of the 2010 census that will be used to apportion House seats. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090921/ap_on_re_us/us_census_recession_s_impact

[Skittles]

1. could I ask

why traffic would be worse in a recession

[Eric J in MN]

3. It wouldn't. The argument later in the aticle...

...is that people have longer commutes because they're giving others a lift:

"Average commute times edged up to 25.5 minutes, erasing years of decreases to stand at the level of 2000, as people had to leave home earlier in the morning to pick up friends for their ride to work or to catch a bus or subway train."

[AndyA]

2. And all it took was putting an idiot like Bush in the White House for 8 years.

Throw in his cronies who were all given jobs they weren't capable of doing.

Toss in a crazy VP who wanted to make war so his buds at Halliburton would love him and his stock would go up in value.

Imagine what things would have been like if we'd had *CAPABLE* government during that time. :eyes: