The West and Others

40 signs that America's next generation is seriously messed up

by Michael Snyder

1. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either "low income" or impoverished.

2. More than 25 percent of all U.S. children have a chronic health condition that affects their ability to learn. Perhaps we should not be feeding them so much junk food.

3. In 2011, SAT scores for young men were the worst that they had been in 40 years.

4. The average young American will spend 10,000 hours playing video games before the age of 21.

5. One study discovered that 88 percent of all Americans between the ages of 8 and 18 play video games, and that approximately four times as many boys are addicted to video games as girls are.

6. According to a survey conducted by the National Geographic Society, only 37 percent of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can find the nation of Iraq on a map.

7. According to one survey, 50 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 cannot find the state of New York on a blank map.

8. Only 26 percent of Oklahoma high school students know what the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are called.

9. Only 10 percent of Oklahoma high school students know how many justices sit on the Supreme Court.

10. At this point, 15-year-olds that attend U.S. public schools do not even rank in the top half of all industrialized nations when it comes to math or science literacy.

11. Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants than children in Europe are.

12. The United States leads the world in eating disorder deaths.

13. The average American drinks more than 600 sodas every single year. That is by far the most in the world.

14. Back in 1962, only 13 percent of all Americans were obese. Right now, approximately 36 percent of all Americans are obese, and it is being projected that number will rise to 42 percent by 2030.

15. In America today, many families allow the television to raise their children. In fact, the United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.

16. There are more school shootings in America than anywhere else in the world.

17. The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin. This is ripping millions of families with children to shreds.

18. Without solid family units, more kids than ever are joining gangs. Today, there are approximately 1.4 million gang members living inside the United States. That number has risen by 40 percent just since 2009.

19. There are more than 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States every single year.

20. If you can believe it, an average of five children die as a result of child abuse in the United States every single day.

21. Sadly, the United States actually has the highest child abuse death rate on the entire globe.

22. Approximately 20 percent of all child sexual abuse victims are under the age of 8.

23. In the United States today, it is estimated that one out of every four girls is sexually abused before they become adults.

24. According to researchers, convicted rapists in the United States report that two-thirds of their victims were under 18, and among those cases 58% said that their victims were 12 years old or younger.

25. The percentage of children living in poverty has risen from 17 percent in 2007 to 22 percent today.

26. Today, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

27. It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.

28. As I have written about previously, approximately 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States are on food stamps.

29. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty (www.nccp.org), 36.4 percent of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1 percent of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6 percent of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6 percent of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

30. It is estimated that up to half a million children may currently be homeless in the United States.

31. It is estimated that child homelessness in the United States has risen by 33 percent since 2007.

32. Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

33. Law enforcement officials estimate that about 600,000 Americans and about 65,000 Canadians are trading dirty child pictures online.

34. The average high school boy spends two hours watching pornography every single week.

35. An astounding 30 percent of all Internet traffic now goes to pornography websites, and the U.S. produces more pornography than any other nation has in the history of the world.

36. In the United States today, 47 percent of all high school students have had sex.


37. One out of every four teen girls in the United States now has an STD.

38. The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate on the entire planet by a wide margin.

39. One survey found that one out of every five teen girls actually wants to be a teen mom.

40. We have borrowed 16 trillion dollars that we expect future generations to repay. We have consigned our children and our grandchildren to a lifetime of debt slavery and they don't even realize it yet. When they do realize what we have done to them they will probably curse us bitterly.

Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.