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A GlobeScan study shows that despite the recession, fair
trade product sales in the U.S. grew by 10% in 2008. Fair
trade items are those where importers and retailers pay a
premium price to workers who grow and produce goods in accordance
with rigorous standards that guarantee worker rights, community
empowerment and environmental sustainability.
The study also found that more than 30% of Americans are
considered "ethically minded consumers," which is nearly double
the global average for consumers. These individuals are defined
as being very active in their communities and having high
expectations of companies for economic, environmental and
social performance.
The following chart shows other figures related to the strength
of the U.S. fair trade market.
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Most American kids aged 8-14 (81%) say they wish companies
did more to help the environment, according to Just Kid Inc.
They see big companies (56%) as more responsible for protecting
the environment than politicians (50%), kids (46%) or their
parents (37%).
Some 64% say they would stop purchasing products from a company
they found out was harming the environment. While kids are
very interested in protecting endangered animals (86%), they
are also concerned with keeping water clean (84%), improving
air quality (83%) and protecting wilderness and wetlands (80%).
The following chart details actions that kids take to help
the environment.
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Overall, the share of adult U.S. Internet users with a profile
on a social networking site has more than quadrupled since
2005: jumping from 8% to 35% today. For adults aged 18-24,
the share is 75%, and for tweens, it's almost 100%.
The social networking site Facebook reached 200 million active
users in April of this year. More than 100 million users log
on to Facebook every day, while more than 20 million users
update their status at least once per day. MySpace has 130
million members; LinkedIn shows over 40 million members, and
Twitter has over 30 million members.
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When asked, men ages 18-34 say they would prefer to keep
their Internet connection (69%) rather than their TV signal
(31%) if forced to choose.
Popular activities for men this age include playing video
games (60%), computer games (51%), going to bars (33%), renting
DVDs (33%), and seeing a movie in a theater (20%).
Some 60% say they notice which companies advertise online,
but they don't click through very often. Forty percent pay
more attention to online ads that include video. Most aren't
bothered - and sometimes like - site takeover ads (63%) and
pre-roll video ads (58%). About one-half (47%) have purchased
something in-store after seeing an online ad, and 39% purchased
something online.
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Almost one-half (47%) of Americans read a blog during the
past 12 months, with 14% doing so at least weekly. Fifty-two
percent of blog readers say that blogs have played a critical
role in moving forward with a purchase.
The most common types of purchases where consumers find blogs
useful are for technology product or service information (31%),
entertainment purchases (15%), games, toys and sporting goods
(14%), travel (12%), automotive (11%) and health (10%).
The chart below provides additional detail on blogs' influence
in consumers' purchasing process.
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A recent survey by TNS Media Intelligence shows that friends
(48%) are the most trusted news source for Americans, followed
by online news (38%). The following chart provides details
on other news sources.
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The American Journal of Medicine reports that almost two-thirds
of all bankruptcies in 2007 were due to illness or the inability
to pay medical bills, a 50% jump from 2001. Only 30.8% of
debtors or a member of their family were uninsured at the
time they filed for bankruptcy.
Hospital costs accounted for 48% of patients' medical expenses,
followed by prescription drugs (18.6%), doctor's bills (15.1%)
and insurance premiums (4.1%). The health problems with the
highest out-of-pocket expenses for patients included: neurologic
(i.e., multiple sclerosis) $34,167; diabetes $26,971; injuries
$25,096; stroke $23,380; mental illnesses $23,178; and heart
disease $21,955.
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According to a survey by the National Business Group on Health,
more than one-quarter of workers are skipping healthcare treatment
to save on their copays and coinsurance. Among the 1,500 insured
workers at large companies (2,000 or more employees) surveyed,
20% have skipped taking medications and 17% have split a dosage
in half to save money. Some 68% said having access to health
benefits is a key reason for staying with their employer,
and 52% said cost is the most important factor when choosing
a health plan.
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The U.S. has just over 4,000 hospital emergency room departments.
The number of annual visits is now at 119.2 million. Patients
spend an average of 3.3 hours to be seen, treated and discharged,
according to a 2006 report by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. Some 400,000 patients had to wait 24 hours
or longer to be treated.
In the last several years urgent care centers have been set
up, reaching a total of about 8,000 centers in 2008. These
facilities are equipped to treat illness or injury that is
not life-threatening but can't wait for an appointment with
a primary care doctor.
About 15% of urgent care centers are affiliated with existing
hospitals, either as satellite facilities or as on-site clinics
near the hospital emergency room that can handle nonemergency
walk-in cases. Although 1 in 4 urgent-care practices serve
an urban population, most - 55% - are in the suburbs, where
affluent and privately insured patients often are reluctant
to spend hours in an emergency room's waiting room.
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Business executives (33%) most commonly attribute lack of
open, honest communication as the cause of low employee morale.
Other factors contributing to low morale include failing to
recognize employee achievements (19%), micromanaging employees
(17%), excessive workloads (16%) and fear of job loss (14%).
The following chart lists remedies executives recommend for
repairing employee morale.
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A report by LexisNexis shows that 100% of white collar workers
surveyed use computers and e-mail during the typical workday,
with 94% also using Internet browsers.
Even though 66% of those surveyed say that new technology
and software make building professional relationships easier,
86% of Baby Boomers say they never visit social networking
sites in the workplace, and 81% report they never read blogs.
In comparison, only 38% of Millennial workers say they never
visit social networks at work and 58% don't read blogs. The
report shows that the attitudes of Generation X workers line
up closer to those of Millennials than to Boomers.
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The annual energy used to transmit, process and filter spam
totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours, according to "The Carbon
Footprint of Email Spam Report," released earlier this year
by the security firm McAfee. This is equivalent to the electricity
used in 2.4 million U.S. homes - and creates the same amount
of greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million cars using 2 billion
gallons of gasoline.
Almost 80% of the energy waste created by spam is due to
end-users deleting it from their inboxes - or searching for
legitimate e-mail.
A 2009 report from Sophos shows that the U.S. is the leading
spam-relaying country in the world, with 17.5% of the total.
Russia is a distant second at 7.7%.
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