BY THE NUMBERS

By The Numbers, a look at what’s in the news . . . by the numbers. These are just numbers, not suggestions that they mean more or less than what they are. We do not suggest that one number is connected to another. These are simply facts with no extraneous details, bias or slanted reporting. To borrow (and perhaps mangle a bit) a quote from legendary fictional detective Joe Friday, it’s just the numbers, ma’am!

Happy (early) Birthday, America! This week, By The Numbers celebrates all things Red, White and Blue! God bless, America!

249

Yup, we are one year away from the big 250 – our nation’s “Semiquincentennial, also called the Bisesquicentennial, the Sestercentennial, America250 or the Quarter Millennium.” (According to our friends at Wikipedia.

340,110,988

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, that is the official population of your United States as of July 1, 2024.

67%

We found a Gallup poll from June of 2023 that reported 67 percent of U.S. citizens over 18 who said they were either extremely or very proud to be American. Sadly, most of us remember when that was a higher number.

16,569,149

That’s the number of military veterans in the country – and we salute them all!

94.8%

The number of households with a computer. Sorry, we looked for the number of households with a wallphone in the kitchen, but couldn’t find it.

89.4%

That’s the percentage of us who are high school graduates.

35%

You guessed it, the number of folks with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

$71.49

According to our pals at Indiana Farm Bureau, that’s the cost for a cookout feeding 10 people this summer – a 5% increase compared to last year.

31% and 19%

At that picnic, the two items that saw the largest increase in price were ice cream and strawberries respectively.