There’s an old saying from the newspaper days: “If it bleeds, it leads.” This means bad news makes the headlines.
There is a lot of angst out there over the economy, and I believe the media pushes it for political reasons as we head closer to the midterm elections. Gas prices are something we see and feel, but the economy is more than just gas prices.
There is good news out there, but it doesn’t get much attention. Household incomes have reached an historic high. The median household income for 2025 rose 2.6% from the previous year to $87,460, the highest on record.
The U.S. poverty rate has also dropped to an historic low (10.2%) since the U.S. Census Bureau began tracking it. (Median income rose 4.8% for black households vs. 3.0% for white households.) Jobless claims recently dropped to levels seldom seen since 1969.
Additionally, rental prices for apartments have dropped to a four-year low.
Finding this news took some searching, but many of the headlines were very similar: “Poverty dips to historic low, but . . .” or “Poverty rate drops to record low, but . . . “
Here is another interesting statistic: We hear a lot about millionaires and billionaires, but a household with an income of $261,300 or more is in the top 10% of U.S. earners.
Crime Numbers & Safety
Another positive statistic not widely broadcast is that violent crime in America dropped by the largest annual amount ever recorded last year. Murder rates dropped 18.5% last year, tying the lowest rate ever recorded.
Robberies declined by 18%, and rapes declined by 7.6% last year as well. Property crime dropped 12.4%—the second-largest decline in history —equating to nearly 750,000 fewer offenses. Early numbers for this year show these declines are continuing.
ICE deporting illegals with criminal records and a secure border must be one part of this decline.
One crime statistic may surprise you. A new federal Bureau of Justice Statistics report released this month examined school safety. The rate of victimization at school has been steady since 2104.
However, students ages 12 to 18 experienced higher rates of reported crime at school than away from school in 2024. The rate of total victimization, including theft and nonfatal violent crimes such as robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault, was 27 per 1,000 students at school in 2024, versus 17.7 per 1,000 outside of school.
Many policymakers and legislators I hear speak on education issues at the statehouse seem to believe homes are far more dangerous for children than schools. The data doesn’t support that supposition.
The Mississippi Miracle
That is what it is being called. Once known for having the worst education outcomes in the nation, Mississippi has risen to the 9th-best state in K-12 education performance.
Over the last ten years, statewide policy was changed to focus reading instruction on phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and higher standards. They also moved away from technology. This sounds rather old-school, doesn’t it? Well, it is working.
One problem among students today, and probably all of us in this smartphone age, is what’s called “hasty reading.” This trend is when students read quickly but inaccurately. And it has doubled. Nearly ten percent of kids read quickly but inaccurately. (I’d bet that 10% stat could be low.)
A Link to State Literacy Rates
A liberal policy group has found something they may not like. States with stronger teachers’ unions tend to have weaker literacy performance and fewer of the policies credited with improving reading skills.
Eight of the 10 states to score among the worst in the Progressive Policy Institute’s (PPI) assessment of early-literacy policies were home to powerful teachers’ unions.
Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Indiana, all Republican-leaning states with weak unions, were among the states with the best literacy outcomes.
Maine, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, and Rhode Island, blue states, were among the worst.
But They Said This Wouldn’t Happen!
There is a terrifying story out of California about communist Chinese infiltration into a town that began when the state legalized marijuana. They have been running a $2 billion yearly illegal marijuana farm that often includes dangerous pesticides and deadly chemicals that some call chemical warfare designed to poison Americans. Several people have been shot and terrorized by these growers, but there are many other crimes stemming from this.
Some people claim that drug legalization will eliminate the black market, but there is no evidence for this. In some states, the black market has grown with legalization of marijuana, and foreign drug cartels are often the operators.
You can read a detailed story about this here.
Cultural Acceptance Does Not Equate to Stability
A large long-term study from Finland, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family earlier this month, examined divorce rates. In the opening of the study, it notes, “prior studies have shown that female and male couples have a higher divorce risk than different-sex couples, with the highest divorce risk among female couples across countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the United States, and Canada.”
Finland is culturally liberal, having allowed same-sex partnerships in 2002 and same-sex marriage in 2017. The study looked at legal unions of heterosexual couples between 2002 and 2020. They found that within 10 years of marriage, the divorce rate among lesbians was 41%. Homosexual male marriages had a divorce rate of 27%. Heterosexual marriages had a divorce rate of 22%.
These findings undermine the claim we sometimes hear in America that the higher rates of social problems among the LGBT community are due to a lack of cultural acceptance or due to the significant presence of religious values supporting natural marriage.
