The United States at 250: How the Country Has Changed in the Past 50 Years
Ahead of the nation’s birthday, Pew Research Center identified some prominent trends across key areas of American life: demographics, work, family and economics.
Economy & Work
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Among Black adults, those with higher incomes are most likely to say they are happy
Black adults in upper-income families are about twice as likely as those in lower-income families to say they are extremely or very happy.
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Americans More Upbeat on the Economy; Biden’s Job Rating Remains Very Low
28% of Americans rate economic conditions as excellent or good, a 9 percentage point increase from last April. And the share who say economic conditions will be worse a year from now has fallen during this timespan, from 46% to 33%.
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Parents, Young Adult Children and the Transition to Adulthood
Most U.S. young adults are at least mostly financially independent and happy with their parents’ involvement in their lives. Parent-child relationships are mostly strong.
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2023 saw some of the biggest, hardest-fought labor disputes in recent decades
The nearly four-month actors’ strike against major Hollywood production studios was the second-largest labor dispute in the United States in at least three decades.
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Older Workers Are Growing in Number and Earning Higher Wages
Roughly one-in-five Americans ages 65 and older were employed in 2023 – nearly double the share of those who were working 35 years ago.
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Striking findings from 2023
Here’s a look back at 2023 through some of our most striking research findings.
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Wealth Surged in the Pandemic, but Debt Endures for Poorer Black and Hispanic Families
About one-in-four Black households and one-in-seven Hispanic households had no wealth or were in debt in 2021, compared with about one-in-ten U.S. households overall.
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Key facts about the wealth of immigrant households during the COVID-19 pandemic
The median wealth of immigrant households increased by 42% from December 2019 to December 2021.
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Do You Tip More or Less Often Than the Average American?
Compare your tipping habits with those of the overall public by visiting Tipping Point, the small town with a big-city feel.
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Online shopping has grown rapidly in U.S., but most sales are still in stores
Through the first three quarters of 2023, retail e-commerce totaled $793.7 billion, or 14.9% of all retail sales.
