Celebrating the 250th Birthday: Part One — How We’ve Changed Since the Bicentennial

On July 4th the citizens of the United States will celebrate the milestone of 250 years of freedom and to quote the U.S. Constitution, securing, “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

It’s been 50 years since the bicentennial of July 4, 1976. This country has seen some sometimes overwhelming changes in the 50 years since. Some are good. Some not so good.

We are older than we were 50 years ago. As the baby boomers age, the number of people 65 and over has almost doubled from 10% in 1976 to 18% in 2026. We are more ethnically and racially diverse as over 70 million Hispanics and Asians have moved into the U.S. legally and illegally.

The total population has grown by 120 million to over 340 million people. More immigrants and longer lifespans have pushed that number.

The number of foreign-born people living in the U.S. has tripled. The share of Hispanics living in the U.S. has more than quadrupled while the number of White Americans is dropping. Less than half of the population in the Western states and the South is white.

We are less likely to be married today than we were on July 4, 1976. Women have more workplace options today than then and have pushed a boon in higher education.

While most of us are better off financially than we were five decades ago, the gap between the haves and the have nots has grown.

We’re moving slowly into the Southern and Western states. Those states have seen the most growth. In 1970 less than half of the population lived in the South and the West. The South had 31% of the population and the West had 17%.

Today over 60% of the U.S. population lives in the states of the West and the South.

The economy of the United States went from one that’s industrial-based to a service-and-information economy. It created huge changes in the workforce and the workplace. In the 50 years since the bicentennial, more women entered the workforce and more men left the workforce.

Overall, the average worker in the U.S. is now making better wages and their earnings have increased.

More people moved from high school into higher education. As a result, more adults finished college. Those getting a bachelors degree more than tripled from 1970 going from 11% to 37%.

More women than men have earned a degree.

The American family has radically changed. We are marrying and having children at a later age than we did in the 1970s. These days fewer Americans are marrying and having children than they did at the bicentennial. The number of adults currently married is 50% — down from 69% in 1970. The decline is deeper among people without a four-year college degree.

Those 50 and over who’ve never been married has gone up a little in the last 50 years. Most of the increase has been for African American adults where the never-been-married group has tripled. The average number of children born to women has fallen from three to two.

A larger number of children live in households with just one parent and a bigger share of Americans live in multigenerational households. The largest increase is with Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans. Those numbers now hit almost 30%. For While Americans the figure is 16%

When it comes to the economy, our standard of living has improved since 1970 but it depends on how things are measured. The number of Americans living in poverty has fallen and it has fallen for older adults even more sharply. However, the middle class has declined and the lower class is growing.

Homeownership has gone up a little but has dropped for adults 18 to 64. For people 65+ it has gone up significantly.

Source link: Pew Research Center — https://bit.ly/4gAeV1I