Stats On The Average American

Here are some fun stats on the average, typical, everyday, mundane American.

There are 303 million people in the United States. Only 10% of US households have more than 5 people, versus 21% in 1970. This means that more people are venturing away from home and the “traditional family unit” is changing now that the Baby Boomers have kids that have “left the roost”. For media, that means the Television and other media habits change to reflect more of their personal interests rather than those of the family unit as a whole.

Approximately 40% of Americans are “on the move” during the 2 hour “rush hour”, which is comprised of people driving to work, taking the bus, taxis, motorcycles, carpools and children riding buses to school. 107 million people drive to work alone. That means there is a lot of time for accessing time shifted and location shifted media via iPods, iPhones, PSP’s and laptops.

The median household income in 2005 was $48,201, but appears to be growing slightly. The problem is most people in America don’t feel it. The rich are getting richer faster than the poor are getting poorer, which skews the data to show an overall increase. As a result, luxury goods and higher ticket items can be impacted as there are a fewer people making a larger position of the wealth, and therefore a smaller target audience to speak to.

People in Advertising Sales appear to be among the happiest one-third of employed Americans; with the unhappiest people by job being Gas Station Attendants (they only make approximately $17,750 per year).

In the US, 1% of the total population makes more than $350,501 per year while 0.01% earns more than $9.6 million per year. What is disturbing about these facts is that the 0.01% with the most income account for approximately 5.1% of all US income.

The average American sees 5-8 movies per year. The average US household has more TV’s than people (2.73 TV’s versus 2.6 people per household). This means that try as we might; TV is still king and “sight, sound and motion” still sells!

71% of US households have an Internet connection, translating to about 31 million homes without access to the Internet. 42% of Americans say they go online and work from home. That means the lines between work and home are continuing to blur, as recently examined when results were published about consumer’s work habits and the penetration of BlackBerry’s and similar devices.

The American goes online 2.1 times at work and 1.2 times at home each day. They visit an average of 6 domains per day and spend an average of 3 hours and 43 minutes online between work and home. That means that although the Internet is large, our personal realms are small.

Americans spend an average of $390 billion/year in restaurants versus $364 billion in the grocery store. That means… that we like to eat out a lot.