Cohabitating: Financial Reward Different for College Graduates

Cohabitating: Financial Reward Different for College Graduates

Just because two people live together doesn’t necessarily mean they will have a higher household income.  The Pew Research Center recently analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data and found that there are 7.5 million couples, in the 30-44 age range, that are cohabitating.  This analysis  indicated that an economic advantage was obtained for those that were college-educated and cohabiting but there wasn’t the same advantage for married couples or those without an opposite-sex cohabitant. 

Pew analyzed their economic well-being and that data was reported in  USAToday: “Median adjusted household incomes of college-educated couples were $106,400 for cohabitors, $101,160 for married couples and $90,067 for adults with no opposite-sex partners. But for less-educated couples, cohabiting is an arrangement that looks a lot like marriage and may well include kids: Incomes were $46,540 for cohabiters, $56,800 for married couples and $45,033 for adults without opposite-sex partners.” 

To read the USAToday article, click here.

Who’s living together?

Partnership status by education

All:
Married, 58%
Cohabitor, 7%
No partner, 35%

Not a college graduate:
Married, 54%
Cohabitor, 8%
No partner, 38%

College graduate:
Married, 68%
Cohabitors, 4%
No partner, 28%

Notes: Based on 30- to 44-year-olds. “No partner” includes those living without an opposite-sex partner or spouse.

Source: 2009 American Community Survey, Pew Research Center

Related articles

• New Study Shows Power In Debt:  Lack of Education to Blame
• Top 10 Personal Finance Articles

True Love: Only 28% Believe It Exists

On Valentine’s Day, it is a time to think about true love.  Just the words “true love” bring to mind the scene from the movie Princess Bride where, with his last breath of air, Westley (Cary Elwes)  uttered those precious two words. Are the rest of us convinced that true love exists?   The Pew Research Organization found that about 28% believed in true love.  For more information on what their research revealed, check out the following information:

Throughout human history, romantics, poets, balladeers and songwriters have celebrated the idea that there’s just one true love for every living soul. Do everyday Americans agree? Well, 28% do. But 69% do not. Views about one true love do not correlate with marital status or with age. However, men (31%) are a bit more likely than women (26%) to say that every person has only one true love; and Hispanics (47%) and blacks (32%) are more likely than whites (24%) to feel this way. Education matters, too: those with a college degree are only half as likely as those with a high school diploma or less to say everyone has just one true love (19% vs. 37%). Conservatives (32%) are more likely to say this than moderates (24%). Catholics (38%) are more likely than Protestants (30%) or those who are unaffiliated (17%) to say they believe in just one true love. A Pew Research survey posed a follow-up question to the respondents who say they believe in just one true love: “And have your found yours, or not?” Nearly eight-in-ten (79%) say they have. These responses correlate both with age and marriage. Among those who say there’s only one true love for each person, about half of 18- to 29-year-olds say they’ve found theirs (54%), compared with nine-in-ten adults ages 50 and older. Meantime, fully 96% of married adults who believe in only one true love say they’ve found theirs, compared with 61% of all unmarried adults and 79% of cohabiters. Read more

Related Articles

• Finding True Love on Valentine’s Day (planejaner.com)
• The Illusions of Love (scientificamerican.com)

Global Warming: Answers For Both Sides From The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See

In a foresight class I teach, we compare Al Gore’s and Glenn Beck‘s views on global warming. It brings up some interesting discussions. A student recently posted this link in class and I think it is very well done and explains the two sides and how we may need to think about the subject.

The amount of interest in global warming may be dropping.  Denverdailynews reported,  “A poll by the Pew Research Center states that the public’s priorities for 2010 did not include global warming. In fact, global warming ranked last as a priority, with just 28 percent of the public considering it a top priority, according to the 2010 poll.”

Wealthy Individuals Use Social Media More Than Most Americans

There is no denying the popularity of social media.  There are so many sites, it can be difficult to keep track them all. It is interesting to see who is actually using social media.  When sites like Twitter came out, many were using it more as a means of chatting about their day.  Times have changed and social media is now a very useful tool for businesses.  Sites like Twitter and Facebook now have a strong business presence. 

Wealthy individuals are recognizing the importance of using social media.  Recent polls have shown the wealthy to use social media more than the average Americans. See the results of a recent poll by SEIC.com listed below.  To read the full article, click here.

OAKS, PA., Oct. 19, 2010 – A new Quick Poll from SEI (NASDAQ: SEIC) today showed that 70 percent of high-net-worth individuals surveyed are users of Facebook and other social media sites. That’s considerably more than the number of daily social media users among the general populace. According to an August, 2010 report from the Pew Research Center, titled Older Adults and Social Media, 61 percent of Americans ages 18 and over have used a social networking site.

However, the Quick Poll results make it clear that wealthy individuals have a hard time squeezing in their social media time – just 17.4 percent of respondents said they use social media on a daily basis. While 38 percent of those surveyed by Pew had used a social networking site in the previous 24 hours.

SEI surveyed 46 wealthy individuals with more than $5 million in investible assets. Of those surveyed that use social media, 50 percent said they use Facebook. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said they visit YouTube, while just under 35 percent use LinkedIn.

One in ten (11%) online adults ages 50-64 and one in twenty (5%) online adults ages 65 and older now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves or see updates about others.

The use of Twitter and other services to share status updates has also grown among older users—most notably among those ages 50-64. While just 5% of users ages 50-64 had used Twitter or another status update service in 2009, 11% now say they use these tools. On a typical day, 6% of online adults ages 50-64 make Twitter a part of their routine, up from the 1% who did so in 2009.

By comparison, social networking sites have gained a much larger foothold in the lives of older Americans over time. One in five (20%) adults ages 50-64 say they use social networking sites on a typical day, up from 10% one year ago. Likewise, 13% of online adults ages 65 and older log on to social networking sites, compared with just 4% who did so in 2009.

Email and online news are still more appealing to older users, but social media sites attract many repeat visitors.

While email may be falling out of favor with today’s teenagers, older adults still rely on it heavily as an essential tool for their daily communications. Overall, 92% of those ages 50-64 and 89% of those ages 65 and older send or read email and more than half of each group exchanges email messages on a typical day. Online news gathering also ranks highly in the daily media habits of older adults; 76% of internet users ages 50-64 get news online, and 42% do so on a typical day.¹ Among internet users ages 65 and older, 62% look for news online and 34% do so on a typical day.

Social media properties—including networking and status update sites—are newer additions to the daily digital diet of older adults. Yet, the “stickiness” of the sites is notable. To look at the data another way, among the pool of adults ages 50 and older who use social networking sites, 44% used them on the day prior to their being contacted for our survey.

The pool of Twitter and status update users ages 50 and older is too small to segment, but the behavior of this limited early adopter group does suggest a similar tendency towards regular use of the sites.

By comparison, less than half of online banking users ages 50 and older visited the sites on a typical day and less than one in five older users of online classified sites reported use of the sites “yesterday.”

In our book It’s Not You It’s Your Per…

In our book It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, Toni Rothpletz and I write about the needs and preferences unique that the millennial generation.  I recently found a millennial marketing site.  It includes an interesting compilation of articles based on that group’s attitudes and values.  Anyone looking for some good information about how to target this unique group, should check it out.  This site is set up as a Wiki.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Wiki’s, click here to find out more.  I have taught some courses on a Wiki and see some great uses for such a platform.  To see specific information about millennials and their special needs in the workplace, click here. To add information to the discussion of NewGens, the term coined by my Toni Rothpletz and me to refer to post boomer generations, please click here.