The food-stamp economy
On the last day of every month, shoppers at Walmart load their carts with food and household items and wait for the midnight hour. Is this the new normal in America? Full Article
U.S. population to hit 303.15 mln on Jan 1: census
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Census Bureau expects the nation's population to be 303.15 million on New Year's Day, up 0.9 percent from January 1, 2007, it said on Thursday.
In 2008, the country will add one person every 13 seconds, the bureau said. That will come from one birth every eight seconds, one death every 11 seconds, and one migrant arriving every 30 seconds.
The agency conducted its population survey from July 1, 2006 to last July.
Despite the housing downturn across western states this year, Nevada experienced the fastest population growth at 2.9 percent, followed by neighbor Arizona, which grew by 2.8 percent, the bureau said.
Texas gained the most people in 2007, with half of a million new residents, but California remained the most populous state with 37 million total residents. The South, which encompasses Texas in census estimates, was the largest region with 110.45 million people.
The Census also said that in 2007 there were signs Louisiana was rebounding from Hurricane Katrina, which forced thousands of people to leave the state in 2005. During the survey period, Louisiana's population grew by almost 50,000, or 1.2 percent the bureau said.
The bureau will release other estimates on counties, cities and metro areas through the first half of the year, it said.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Diane Craft)
