United States: More Older Workers

Highlights from the U.S. Census Bureau’s release of data on key social, economic and housing characteristics for the United States has been released. The data came from more than 7,000 areas, including all congressional districts, cities, and metro areas with a 65,000 population or more. The highlights include:

Older Workers

Nationally, nearly one in four people between the ages of 65 and 74 (23.2 percent) were in the labour force in 2006, an increase from 19.6 percent in 2000. States with some of the lowest rates of older workers in the labour force include West Virginia, Michigan and Arizona.

The highest rates were found in South Dakota, Nebraska and Washington, D.C., all with about one-third of people in this age group in the labour force.

Homeownership

Homeownership has also increased since 2000, with more than two-thirds of all occupied homes (67.3 percent) currently owned by the occupant, compared to 66.2 percent in 2000. In 2006, the highest rates of homeownership were found in Minnesota (76.3), and some of the lowest were found in New York (55.6 percent) and Washington, D.C. (45.8 percent). Among the 20 largest metro areas, Minneapolis-St. Paul shared the top spot with Detroit (75.2 and 74.6 percent, respectively), with St. Louis ranking third (73.1 percent).

Non-English Speakers

In 2006, about 8 million more people spoke a foreign language at home than in 2000. Nationally, one in five over age 5 spoke a language other than English at home, compared to 17.9 percent in 2000. Among states, California (42.5 percent) had the highest percentage in this category, followed by New Mexico (36.5 percent) and Texas (33.8 percent).

Among the 20 largest metro areas, more than half of all people over 5 in Los Angeles spoke a language other than English at home. Miami ranked second in this category followed by San Francisco-Oakland and Riverside, California where about four in 10 spoke a language other than English at home.

Married with Children

The percentage of households that were married-couple families with children under 18 decreased from 23.5 percent in 2000 to 21.6 percent in 2006.

All states, except Connecticut, saw a percentage point decrease in households in this category since 2000. In 2006, Utah had the greatest percentage of married-couple households with children under 18, at 32.3 percent. Other states with high rates included Idaho, California, Texas, New Jersey and Alaska Florida (18.2 percent) and Washington, D.C. (7.3 percent) had some of the lowest.

Additional highlights:

The District of Columbia had a higher percentage of people with a bachelor’s degree or more (46 percent) than any state.

California and Hawaii were the two states with the highest median value of owner-occupied homes (more than $500,000). California cities Newport Beach and Santa Barbara had median home values of about $1 million.

More than half of California homeowners with a mortgage spent 30 percent or more of their household incomes on mortgage payments and other owner costs. Less than a quarter of North Dakota homeowners spent 30 percent or more of their household incomes on mortgage payments other owner costs.