Sex was on a quick uprising causing a rise in the amount of teen pregnancies. The United States has recently seen a decine in teen pregnancy since the 1950s, with this decline the US is still one of the highest ranking birth rates in comparison with other industrialized countries. Childbearing in teenagers is not only looked down upon because the the health risks that mother and child are prone to, but also the rising rate of uneducated US citizens. According to the NCHS the teen pregnancy birht rate has decreased almost 9%, as an all tie historical low since 1949.

With these declines it is safe to say that the impact of the pregnancy prevention messages have taken impact. Check out this website, it has many more statistics with graphs and more information that should make everyone happy!

Being a college student, I am very concerned with health issuance issues like cost and what happens when I graduate.  We all know how expensive our school insurance is and how little it covers. I know that if my financial aid did not cover the cost then I wouldn’t have any at all.  Because finical aid  does cover it I don’t have to worry about it for a few years but after I graduate I will not be able to afford it. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the first 6 months of 2011 compared to all of 2012, the health insurance rate declined in people ages 19 to 25.

The article ‘Health Insurance Coverage of Young Adults Aged 19 to 25:2008, 2009, and 2011‘ discusses the insurance coverage of people aged 19 to 25 and how the new law played a huge role in the changes.

The new law that I am referring to is a standardized national law that came into affect in 2010 were children under the age of 26 can be covered by their parents’ private health insurance. Because of the change in law, the article shows data from the two years before the change (2008 and 2009) and after (2011). The Census Bureau also compares those statistics to those aged 26 to 29, who were unable to be covered under their parents insurance.

The article states that there is not much of a difference of stats between the age groups 19 to 25 and 26 to 29 before the new law. In 2009, both groups dropped 1.1%-1.2%. After the new law the two groups were no longer changing at the same rate.  From 2009 to 2011, the insurance rate of people aged 19 to 25 increased from 68.3% to 71.8%. Whereas people aged 26 to 29, their insurance rate decreased from 71.1% to 70.3%.

Hopefully soon we will find a solution to fix the health insurance issues in the country. According to these statistics, it is not looking good to anyone over the age of 26.

Recently in the Berkshire Eagle was an article about the jobless rate in Massachusetts increasing .2% this past month. It has gone up from 6.1% in July to 6.3% in August. This was caused by the loss of 4,800 jobs during the month from sectors such as construction and education and health services.

Although the jobless rate slightly increased in our state last month, in the past couple of years it’s actually been decreasing pretty steadily. This can be clearly seen by looking at the third and fourth graphs in the second link. The third graph, titled “unemployment”, shows the number of people in Massachusetts who have been unemployed every month since 2002. The fourth graph, titled “unemployment rate”, shows the percent of the population of Massachusetts who are jobless. This graph uses the same time line. Both graphs are seasonally adjusted, meaning seasonal jobs and jobs that are affected by the weather have been excluded from the data. The table underneath the graphs gives specific numbers of both people and percentages. The last two columns of the table show that the lowest unemployment rate was from March 2007 to January 2008 at 4.5%, averaging 153,572 people unemployed. The highest the unemployment rate has been in the past 10 years was in August 2009 to February 2010 at 8.7%, averaging 301,561 people unemployed. As of now, we’re almost directly in the middle with 218,753 people unemployed.

Unemployment is also dropping little by little in the United States as a whole. The third link contains a table showing that the unemployment rate decreased .2% from July to August. The graph above it makes it easier to visualize the fluctuation of the percentages month by month for the past 10 years. Both the table and the graph are seasonally adjusted and it is noted that the data comes from people ages 16 and up. Using the numbers from the table it’s easy to calculate averages, which show that unemployment in the U.S. was at it’s lowest in 2006 and 2007 at 4.6% and at it’s highest in 2010 at 9.6%. The country is currently at an 8.2% unemployment rate but that’s only the average from January 2012 to August 2012; it can (and probably will) change with the coming months.

Sources:

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_21591148/mass-jobless-rate-rises-6-3-percent?IADID=Search-www.berkshireeagle.com-www.berkshireeagle.com

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST25000003

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

 

 

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