Percentage of Americans under the age of 60 who expect to receive an inheritance, according to a survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International for Interest.com: 27
Percentage of Americans age 60 and older who expect to leave an inheritance to family members: 64
Source: Bankrate Inc.
Average age Americans would like to live at if they could skip time and live forever in good health at a particular age, according to the results of The Harris Poll: 50
When The Harris Poll asked this question 10 years ago, the perfect age cited: 41
Source: Harris Interactive.
As U.S. consumers continue to recover from the Great Recession, percentage of households where the level of debt they are carrying is causing significant stress in their lives, according to research from Mintel: 25
Percentage who state that the amount of debt they have impacts their day-to-day lives: 25
Percentage of American households who think people would disapprove if they knew how much debt they were in: 13
Source: Mintel.
Percentage of shoppers who feel guilt or shame after shopping -- one of the warning signs of a shopping addiction, according to a poll by CreditDonkey.com: 36
Percentage who hide purchases from their families: 20
Percentage who check available credit at least once a week: 27
Source: CreditDonkey.com.
Total tab being left to future generations, representing today's official debt plus future unfunded government obligations, according to a report by The Can Kicks Back, a nonpartisan and millennial-led campaign to defeat the national debt and reclaim the American Dream: $200 trillion
Sum of lifetime federal benefits, in excess of taxes paid, that will have been collected by a senior turning 65 this year: $327,500
Lifetime tax rate on all future Americans if they are forced to pay the bill being racked up by today's Americans: 60
Source: The Can Kicks Back.
Percentage of singles who have played wingman (the successful dater's essential sidekick) for a friend, according to a Zoosk survey: 69
Percentage of singles who say the most important quality for a wingman to possess is trustworthiness: 46
Source: Zoosk.
Percentage of Americans who expect to experience incivility in the next 24 hours, saying that dealing with incivility has become a way of life for many, according to a poll by Weber Shandwick and public affairs firm Powell Tate partnered with KRC Research on Civility in America: 43
Percentage of Americans who continue to believe that the Internet encourages uncivil behavior: 70
Percentage of parents who reported that their children experienced incivility at school: 62
Percentage of Americans who personally experienced incivility at work: 37
Source: Weber Shandwick.
Percentage of senior managers who said they have accepted the blame in the office for something that wasn't their fault, according to a survey developed by OfficeTeam: 47
Percentage of those who took the fall who reported they did so because they felt indirectly responsible for the problem: 34
Percentage who felt that when they did take the blame it was because the infraction was minor enough that it wasn't worth arguing over: 34
Source: OfficeTeam.
Percentage of drivers in 24 countries who indicate they text, email or use social media while they are driving (even when they're at a stop sign or a red light), according to the findings of a poll conducted by Ipsos OTX: 22
Rank of the U.S. in this group: 6
Source: Ipsos Open Thinking.
Every year, amount of food wasted in the U.S. as a whole, with only 3 percent of that food being donated or composted, according to a study from the Food Waste Reduction Alliance, Grocery Manufacturers Association, the Food Marketing Institute and the National Restaurant Association: 35 million tons
Annual cost to Americans of this wasted food: $165 billion
Source: Food Nutrition & Science.
Idle Thought
"Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence." -- Honore de Balzac, novelist
(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)