AllPolitics - 1,000-page Portrait

Census Paints 1,000-Page Portrait Of America

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Nov. 21) -- The sun rose today, as it usually does. The Census Bureau, which knows all about us, says that this day, 10,900 new Americans will be born, and 6,300 of us will die.

The Census Bureau issued its annual Statistical Abstract of the United States today. It's 1,022 pages crammed with 1,468 tables. If you think that sounds boring, you're wrong. It's a way of looking into the mirror and seeing ourselves.

Thirteen hundred new immigrants will arrive. Some will stay and join us, become Americans. They'll join a country where 6,500 of us get married every day. And 3,300 get divorced.

It's a violent country. There are more than 29,000 violent crimes every day. It's a polluted country. We spew 268,000 tons -- 1994 statistics here -- of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere every day. Trees will eat a lot of that, or we'd all be in trouble. Cars are part of the problem, of course; we make more than 33,000 new motor vehicles every day, which is just as well, because we have almost 18,000 accidents every day.

We spend money -- $18 million dollars a day on the movies and another $18 million on video rentals. But another statistic: $65 million a day for books. Who says reading is a lost art?

We visit automatic teller machines 27 million times a day; it takes money to buy all this stuff.

We farm. America's hardworking chickens lay -- 1994 numbers -- 202 million eggs every day.

And each American dairy cow produces 44 pounds of milk a day. The Census Bureau is impressed. "Poor Betsy," says the Bureau's Lars Johanson. "The cow is really churning out a whole lot of milk if it's 44 pounds."

We grow food; we eat food. We spend more than $1 billion each day in food stores (that's for stuff we take home and cook) and another $600 million a day eating out. Everything from diners to the Ritz.

We spend $46 million a day in beauty and barbershops. In America, hair matters. And we're trashy; we generate 4.4 pounds of solid waste per person, per day. Some of it probably came from the Post Office, which processes half a billion pieces of mail every day. You probably didn't want all of yours.

Still, add it all up, and it's a portrait. "If you take a look at all these items, as an entirety," says Johanson, "that is a picture of what's happening in the United States, you know, and that is sort of a picture of America today."

And tomorrow, we'll do it all again.

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