Income spend on food
USDA data shows that in 2010 Americans spent 9.4 percent of their disposable income on food, which equals 5.5 percent at home and 3.9 percent eating out. As a nation, Americans spend far less of a percentage on our food than they ever have before. For example, in 1929 Americans spent 23.4 percent of our disposable income on food, which equaled 20.3 percent at home and 3.1 percent eating out. The 5.5% of disposable income that Americans spend on food at home is less than half the amount of income spent by Germans (11.4%), the French (13.6%), the Italians (14.4%), and less than one-third the amount of income spent by consumers in South Africa (20.1%), Mexico (24.1%), and Turkey (24.5%), which is about what Americans spent DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION, and far below what consumers spend in Kenya (45.9%) and Pakistan (45.6%).
Use of Public Transit Grew in 2011
Americans took 10.4 billion rides on public transportation in 2011 — a billion more than they took in 2000, and the second most since 1957, according to a report being released by the American Public Transportation Association, a nonprofit organization that represents transit systems. The increase in ridership came after the recession contributed to declines in the previous two years. This is 200 million more rides last year on subways, commuter trains, light-rail systems and public buses.
[Thank you Americans]
One study was led by East Carolina University with researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Oregon State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and U.S. Geological Survey. The new scientific research has confirmed that oil from the BP’s well made it into the ocean’s food chain through the smallest of organisms, zooplankton. Zooplankton serve as food for baby fish and shrimp and act as conduits for the movement of oil contamination and pollutants into the food chain. The scientists were able to give a unique fingerprint to the Deepwater Horizon oil and they were able to trace this oil to confirm that it entered the food web even after the well was capped. The Deepwater oil could be found in some zooplankton as much as a month after the leaking wellhead was capped.