Over the previous 15 years, nonprofit employment has grown 35 %, dwarfing the 9 % job development loved by the for-profit personal sector over that point. Nonprofits have handed native authorities to change into the second-largest supply of employment within the nation, behind the for-profit sector.
The highest 5 states for nonprofit employment are all within the Northeast, with Vermont main a New England sweep of the rostrum, together with Maine and Massachusetts. Pennsylvania and Rhode Island spherical out the highest 5. (D.C., that inveterate outlier, would beat out each state for first place — nevertheless it might not be honest to check a dense city core that can be the nation’s capital with the sprawl of your common American state.)
On the backside of the rankings are Texas, that bastion of privatization, self-reliant Nevada and the storm-battered territory of Puerto Rico.
Girls are about twice as more likely to work at nonprofits as their male friends, and nonprofits have the smallest wage gaps of any sector. The everyday girl at a nonprofit makes about 88 % as a lot every hour as her male counterpart, an enormous enchancment over the 80 % she’d earn within the for-profit sector, and successfully tied with the 87 % she’d make within the federal authorities.
As a rule, the extra educated and older you might be, the extra possible you might be to have a nonprofit job. Having a sophisticated diploma makes you 3 times likelier to do nonprofit work than your pals who didn’t make it previous highschool.
That’s partly as a result of drugs has swallowed a lot of the nonprofit sector. While you consider nonprofits, you consider scrappy do-gooders operating on donations. However 1 in each 5 nonprofit jobs are in hospitals, and 1 in 3 are within the well being sector extra broadly. About 2 in 5 hospital jobs in your entire nation are in nonprofits. Nonprofit hospitals make use of greater than twice as many individuals as schools, personal colleges or spiritual organizations — the subsequent largest nonprofit industries.
The South’s lack of nonprofits largely displays a scarcity of nonprofit drugs. Different forms of nonprofits are usually extra equitably distributed. As readers Tim Carter in Seattle and Joe Bogucki in Newnan, Ga., identified after we appeared into credit score scores, the South’s surfeit of for-profit hospitals may be another excuse that area has such excessive medical debt.
Why are glasses extra frequent than listening to aids?
In a earlier column, we examined the ubiquity of eyeglasses. However we didn’t have time to handle a follow-up query from reader Brenda Philips, who needed to know why so many individuals put on glasses versus listening to aids.
One other nice query, Brenda! We owe you a bonus button.
For the document, sure: glasses far outpace listening to aids. Solely 3 % of American adults put on listening to aids, whereas nearly two thirds of us put on glasses, in accordance with our evaluation of the Nationwide Well being Interview Survey, performed by the Census Bureau on behalf of the Nationwide Heart for Well being Statistics. And as with glasses, use of listening to aids ascends with age.
About 20 % of People age 75 or older put on listening to aids, that are extra prevalent amongst males (25 %) than amongst girls (15 %). Extra educated people usually tend to put on listening to aids, as are people who earn extra.
However the greatest gaps are racial. Among the many 70-plus crowd, Whites are about twice as more likely to have listening to aids as all people else, and practically 4 instances as possible as Black People — 18 % versus 5 %.
However is it that Whites usually tend to lose their listening to, or simply that they’re extra more likely to right that loss? Each, truly!
Whites are twice as possible as their Black mates to say they’re having “average bother” or “plenty of bother” with their listening to — 22 % versus 11 %. They usually’re nearly twice as more likely to get listening to aids — 57 % versus 32 % of these with listening to bother.
General, hearing-aid use has risen up to now decade. Kristen Conners, audiologist and proprietor of Prescription Listening to within the sylvan suburb of Palos Park, south of Chicago, tells us that’s possible attributable to main technological advances which have made the gadgets much more snug and efficient — and much much less seen.
Age-related listening to loss (presbycusis) seems to be much less prevalent than age-related imaginative and prescient loss (presbyopia). However each are pervasive. It’s simply that listening to loss will have an effect on most of us whereas imaginative and prescient loss will have an effect on principally all of us.
Which brings us again to Brenda’s query: why aren’t listening to aids extra frequent?
After we requested Connors, she spoke with the weary, battle-scarred perspective of knowledgeable who has spent three many years convincing those who, sure, their partner is true: You actually do have listening to difficulties. And sure, listening to aids would assist.
“It’s not an impairment or incapacity that you just see or really feel,” Connors stated. When your eyes begin to go, you’ll be able to understand what you’re lacking. A battery of blobs swim placidly the place the menu was. However when your ears go — normally round age 65 — there’s little to cue you in to all of the noises popping off round you.
“Your mind and physique simply adapts or adjusts,” Connors informed us. “The one that has the listening to loss doesn’t understand it at first.” It typically takes the skin perspective of a partner or baby to level out they’re lacking something in any respect.
Listening to aids are additionally freighted with stigma, Connors stated. About half of younger adults put on spectacles, which might imbue some frames with an aura of hipness. However regardless of their current high-tech makeover, listening to aids retain an only-for-old-folks stigma.
The perfect query we will’t reply
What’s the mixed weight of all of the bar code stickers on vegatables and fruits, yearly? Each time I peel one off, and ensure they don’t find yourself in my compost pile, I ponder about this!
— Tamsen McGinley in San Jose
Is it too late to alter our title to “Division of We Don’t Have Information, however We Did Some Again-of-the-Envelope Math?” As a result of it kills us that we will’t reply hilarious and all-important questions like these. Perhaps an alert reader with connections to the produce-packing trade can assist us out?
For now, we will let you know that People spent about $114 billion up to now yr on recent vegatables and fruits, in accordance with the Bureau of Financial Evaluation. Produce ate up about 10 % of our grocery and liquor-store spending, simply behind bakery merchandise and simply forward of the class that features mineral waters, mushy drinks and vegetable juices.
Whereas grocery spending has fallen as superstores and expertise have pushed down costs, our loyalty to recent fruit and greens stays. They make up about as a lot of our meals price range as they did in 1960 — though there was a wild time within the Seventies and 80s when processed and canned produce nearly handed the actual deal; and spending on sweets truly handed spending on recent produce for a lot of the Carter administration earlier than we got here to our senses.
We must always observe that our figures for processed produce don’t embrace wine, which has swallowed up increasingly of our meals price range. Because the flip of the millennium, the common American has spent extra on fermented fruit than on the recent selection — which is one strategy to get your fruit with out these perfidious produce stickers.
Greetings! Right here on the The Division of Information, we rely in your quantitative questions. What do you surprise about: Who works the longest hours? How have commuting patterns modified for the reason that pandemic? The place was baby care (in all probability) most costly in 2018? Simply ask!
In case your query conjures up a column, we’ll ship an official Division of Information button and ID card. This week’s buttons go to Brenda, once more, in addition to Tamsen, Tim, Joe and Leslie.