Notable numbers

by News and Observer, June 13, 2014.

Statistics from the past week that deserve a doubletake

$52,275 What a family of two adults and two children would need to make annually to afford housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and taxes, according to the N.C. Budget & Tax Center

1/3 The number of N.C. families who fall below that threshold

3/4 The number for one adult, two children families who do

$23,550 The federal measure of poverty for a family of four

65 The percentage of Americans who say religion is important in their daily lives

28 The percentage of Americans who believe the Bible is the actual word of God and to be taken literally

47 The percentage who believe the Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally

21 The percentage who believe it is an ancient book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man

1/3 The number of African-American and Hispanic boys who won’t graduate from high school this year

50 The percentage of those boys who attend just 660 of the nation’s 12,600 regular and vocational high schools

15 The number of states those 660 schools are in, including North Carolina

770,000The number of military veterans who live in North Carolina

83 The number of days new patients seeking primary care have had to wait to be seen at the Fayetteville VA

64 The number of days at the Durham VA; the Durham VA had the longest wait in the country for a new patient seeking mental health care: 104 days

145The number of days at the Honolulu VA, the longest wait in the country

15The number of Newtown-like school shootings since the deadly assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. Everytown for Gun Safety, an umbrella group started by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had said after a school shooting in Oregon on Tuesday that there had been 74 ‘school shootings’ since Newtown. CNN later delved into that number and found Everytown’s list included school shootings involving a firearm discharged inside or on school grounds, including assaults, homicides, suicides and accidental shootings

99 The percentage of politically engaged Republicans who are more conservative than the median Democrat; that percentage was 88 in 2004

99 The percentage of politically engaged Democrats who are more liberal than the median Republican; that percentage was 84 in 2004

27 The percentage of Democrats who believe the other party is a threat to the nation’s well-being; 50 percent of those who hold nearly uniform liberal beliefs believe that

36 The percentage of Republicans who believe that about Democrats; 66 percent of consistent conservatives believe that

76 The percentage of consistent liberals who say it’s important to live in an area with a mix of people from different racial or ethnic backgrounds

20 The percentage of consistent conservatives who say that

20 The percentage of Democrats and Republicans who fall into the “consistent” category