How to lie: “Only 12% of 30-year-olds are married and own a home”
A pop social media doomerism meme is that only 12% of 30-year-olds are married and own a home. Read why it's a bullshit metric.
Economy: Today’s homes cannot be compared to 1950s-1970s homes
Another comparison of homes from 1970 to today. The differences are huge, making price comparisons useless.
Education, Work: Do students from wealthy backgrounds work part-time?
A chart shows more students "working" or "interning" if they come from wealthy households. But this may be misleading.
Demographics: China’s fertility rate drops to 0.93
Over the longer term, China's population is collapsing from 1.4 billion perhaps to 600 million or lower.
Public library usage has collapsed
My county recently opened new libraries – and one of them is in my city, where the square footage of the original library has been doubled.
Demographics: US probably saw a drop in population in 2025
For the first time in at least 50 years, the US population in 2025 likely dropped.
Innovation: The decline in the incidence of home structure fires
Since the 1970s, the incidence of structure fires has declined by 55%.
Economy: “Home prices have quadrupled relative to income”
This finance influencer chart is bogus.
Economy: What % of households have 0, 1, 2 or 2+ income earners
55-70% of US households have zero or one wage earner, contrary to the memes about "two wage earners" can't afford to live in the U.S. today.
Demographics: Most Americans live within a short distance of where they were born
Most Americans live close to their birthplace: about 60% live within 10 miles, and nearly 80% live within 100 miles of where they grew up.