The 3,000,000th American

[M.Meursault]

@Sunspace

Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, etc, were Americans. They just weren’t “United Statesians” yet.

The Americas were named long before the United States of America was founded, and the inhabitants’ separate identitiy as Americans helped found the USA. As well as Quebec, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, etc…

…you win this round, Mr. Semantic.

But we will meet again…

[PastAllReason]

@Sunspace

Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, etc, were Americans. They just weren’t “United Statesians” yet.

The Americas were named long before the United States of America was founded, and the inhabitants’ separate identitiy as Americans helped found the USA. As well as Quebec, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, etc…

Unless there’s been another referendum that I’ve missed, one of these things is not like the others.

[Zoe]

People in Brazil can’t sing The Happy Wanderer?

[psifreak]

@M. Meursault

I remember reading, I think on CNN, that the 300,000,000th birth will be in October and that the odds are great that the child will be a bouncing Hispanic baby. I’ll try to find a cite.

I wouldnt be surprised one bit!

[nano8track]

@turnasquare1

I recently saw an ad for Gerber on TV. It said that this October, the three millionth American will be born (and they’d be right there with it…or something).

Anyway, it got me thinking, is there a way to figure out who the 3,000,000th American really is? I mean, I know there is no way to tell EXACTLY how many people are living at any given moment…but still, could we make an educated guess as to who this lucky person is? Or would it just be impossible?

I wonder which method they used to calculate the 300,000,000th* person? The U.S. Census Bureau actually uses two different methods to calculate the U.S. population.

One is the way the statisticians prefer which is done via careful sampling techniques. The other way is counting each person individually which is the legal way, but is believed to be somewhat inaccurate especially in counting minorities. In comparing both their sampling results and the official census results with the numbers from Selective Service, they found the sampling numbers to be very close to the Selective Service numbers. The official census numbers came up lower though, particularly when comparing minorities.

How the U.S. population is determined is actually a political issue, because it affects how many representatives each state receives, how the districts are drawn, etc…

Here’s a few related sites that I dug up:
http://www.aaas.org/spp/cstc/pne/pubs/stc/bulletin/articles/7-97/CENSUS.HTM
http://www.adversity.net/special/census2000_sampling.htm
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/11/census.sampling.ap/

[Kimstu]

One hundred million in 1915, two hundred million in 1967, 300 million in 2006, 400 million predicted before 2030, 500 million before 2050… hmmm. This is getting rather speedy.

[JohnT]

Oddly enough, I happened to once know the guy who was the 200,000,000th person in the country. Born in 1967 around Boston (I think), I met him in the 6th grade in the Atlanta suburbs. He was featured in a couple of magazine ads, Maytag iirc, and I lost track of him after elementary school.

[JohnT]

Actually, there’s an AJC write up about the guy.

A partner in King and Spalding, eh? In Atlanta, that’s like writing your own ticket, if you know what I mean. Good job, Bobby!

[Ignatz]

@Kimstu

One hundred million in 1915, two hundred million in 1967, 300 million in 2006, 400 million predicted before 2030, 500 million before 2050… hmmm. This is getting rather speedy.

This site/cite

Population Clock

says (with other links):

U.S. POPClock Projection
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 09/27/06 at 00:54 GMT (EST+5) is
299,839,118
COMPONENT SETTINGS FOR SEPTEMBER 2006

One birth every… 7 seconds
One death every… 13 seconds
One international migrant (net) every… 30 seconds
Net gain of one person every… 10 seconds

Historical National Population Estimates

Confucius say: “Too many elections, evely night!”