A NATION'S FACE IN NUMBERS

In recording his joys and sorrows, his struggle for existence, his encounters, good and evil, man has used words, music, paint, stone, steel, film. The U.S. Bureau of the Census uses numbers. Last week it issued its 75th Anniversary edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, a volume which embraces the raw material of American drama. Some ore from this 1,056-page mine:

THE 3,909,000 Americans who are born each year-have a life expectancy of 68.4 years (17 years more than they would have had 40 years ago). Births in hospitals are the rule (90% of the total registered) rather than the privilege (36.9%) that they were 20 years ago. Americans (aged 5 to 34) enrolled in school number 32,796,000 (up more than 3,000,000 in three years), of whom 3,515,000 are six-year-olds (up one million in three years, reflecting the attainment of school age by the postwar bumper baby crop).

Life & Death. Americans celebrate 1,566,793 marriages and agonize over 388,000 divorces in a year. The typical groom is 23.8, the bride 21.4 (they are oldest in Connecticut--23.6; youngest in Idaho--20.9). The nation's 46,828,000 families are smaller (3.4 persons) than in 1940 (3.77) or in 1890 (4.93). The U.S. has 814,000 more married women than married men (due to reporting discrepancies and absences of husbands on overseas assignments), but Mormon Utah is one state with more (633) husbands than wives. The U.S. has 1,776,681 more women than men (the reverse was true 75 years ago), 50.7 people per sq. mi. (v. 16.9 then), and its population (median age: 30.2, ten years more than in 1879) is 59% urban (v. 72% rural then).

In the nation's employed labor force (62,242,000) there are only 6,970,000 farmers. The 17 million labor force of 75 years ago was divided almost equally between farm and nonfarm. Women workers (19,353,000) today are 31% of the labor force, compared to 25% in 1940. There are 1,273,000 fewer farm workers and 321,000 fewer domestic servants than in 1940, but 1,836,000 more commercial service workers. Of the nation's 2,678 female morticians and embalmers, 35 are unemployed.

A 65-year-old person today can expect to live another 14.1 years, but death strikes 1,519,000 times a year in the U.S. The biggest killers are heart disease (545,675) and cancer (215,525), both of them highest in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, lowest in New Mexico. Infant mortality (28.4 under a year old per 1,000 live births) is down from 47 in 1940, 99.9 in 1915. It is highest in New Mexico, lowest in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In a year 7,495 Americans are murdered (but the rate is lower than in any year since 1910) and 15,909 are suicides (less per capita than in any year since 1920).

Each day 1,309,377 Americans receive hospital treatment, 584,455 in mental hospitals (the load was 352,279 twenty years ago). Among major diseases, the biggest gainer is polio (57,879 cases v. 1947's low 10,827); the biggest loser is syphilis (165.853 cases v. 1946's peak 385,524).

In a year the typical American receives 305 pieces of mail, makes 438 telephone calls, eats 397 eggs and 151 Ibs. of meat, drinks 1.1 gal. of hard liquor (v. 2.24 a hundred years ago) and 16.7 gal. of beer and ale (v. 1.6 a hundred years ago), and makes $1,639 (average family income is $4,070 up from $3,270 in 1949). But his share of the national debt is $1,666.11. He contributes $2.86 (per capita of adult population) to Community Chest and United Fund campaigns. If he is one of the nation's 92,277,129 church members, he gives $41.94 a year to his church, which is likely to be small if he is a Methodist (39,906 churches, 9,180,428 members), large if he is a Roman Catholic (15,723 churches, 30,253,427 members).

In a year, Americans voyaged 18,059,000,000 scheduled air passenger miles and 34,033,000,000 rail passenger miles. They drove 46,289,000 passenger cars (v. less than 20,000,000 in all the rest of the world) 521,741,000,000 miles at an average speed (on main open highways) of 51.1 m.p.h. and caused 36,030 traffic-accident deaths.

Americans Are Migrants. During a year, 30,786,000 U.S. citizens moved, as many as the number of aliens who immigrated to the U.S. during the last 70 years. Many of them (20,638,000) stayed in the same county but, nonetheless, they moved. Of the rest, 4,626,000 moved to a different county in their state; 5,522,000 moved to a different state. Mississippi has the smallest portion (10.5%) of residents born in other states, but more living Americans have moved to Mississippi than have stayed in three other states (Nevada, Wyoming and Delaware). Nevada has the most mobile population among the states: 49.4% of native-born Nevadans have moved away; 68.7% of today's Nevadans were born out of the state. Of California's 9,324,515 people, 5,425,935 (58.2%) were born elsewhere. But even native Californians wander away, though proportionately fewer (11.4%), to be sure, than natives of any other state.

For that ever-threatening rainy day, Americans have saved $206.4 billion ($4,408 per family) and are adding to it at the rate of $12.4 billion a year. There are 6,490,000 U.S. stockholders, more of whom are farmers (320,000) and skilled workers (410,000) than executives (300,000).

Although they save, Americans also have $229.9 billion a year to spend. Household appliances are one thing they like to spend it on. More (9,160,000) homes have vacuum cleaners than do not. Still more (11,420,000) have television sets than do not. Only 1.6% of the nation's homes have no radio set. Fewer homes (4,183,000) have no refrigerator than do have an electric blanket (4,296,000). There are air conditioners in 1,381,000 homes, deepfreezers in 5,955,000, washing machines in 34,194,000. During the 1940s, the number of homes with indoor plumbing increased by over 10,000,000. But there are still 11 million homes with an outdoor privy or none at all.

-Figures throughout are for the most recent year available.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.