I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control, one-fifth (20.2 percent to be exact) of households in the United States are wireless only. The data is from the second half of 2008, between July and December.
This is interesting politically, because some political pollsters do not include cell phone numbers in their samples. As more and more Americans transition to using solely cell phones for their phone calls (despite Qwest’s “Long Live the Landline” advertising campaign), the way that pollsters do their work may have to change.
Mark Blumenthal writes at Pollster.com, “These regular CDC estimates are a big reason why most national media polls are now including samples of cell phone users”
The report says, “18.4% of all adults — more than 41 million adults — lived in households with only wireless telephones; 18.7% of all children — nearly 14 million children — lived in households with only wireless telephones.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Carl Bialik wrote, “By the 2010 mid-term elections, they’ll be surveying an electorate in which nearly 30% of homes don’t have landlines, if the latest quarter’s rate of wireless substitution persists.”
Among Hispanics, the number is even higher with 25 percent of respondents in that demographic living in cell-phone only households. Younger Americans are more likely to forgo paying for a landline; among 25-29 year olds, 41.5 percent are in cell-phone only households, the highest percentage of any age group. Unsurprisingly those 65 and older are the least likely to live in cell phone only households — only 3.3 percent of those in that age group are wireless.
And then there are “Wireless-mostly” households, which make up a 14.5 percent of the U.S. population. These are households which “received all or almost all calls on the cellular telephones.”
So why are people turning off their land line service in favor of wireless? One reason is the economy. Again from Bialik:
“Some of the increase in the prevalence of wireless-only households is likely due to the economic environment,” Blumberg said. “Among adults living in poverty, the prevalence rose by five percentage points, from 26% to 31%. This was a greater increase than for any other income group.”
There are no state-by-state numbers as were released for the first half of 2008 in March. But expect the state by state numbers for July-December of 2008 later this year.
Among those in the West, 17.2 percent of adults are in wireless-only houses.
