Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-292).

Politicians, pundits, and media "experts" are constantly barraging us with facts and figures to bolster their arguments about America's social and economic ills. Most of the time their information is partial, misleading, or just plain wrong. Now, some of America's foremost social science researchers collaborate to provide citizens and voters with an accessible, jargon-free guide to the key issues that will be debated in the coming campaigns. After culling through thousands of surveys, data banks, and research documents they have put together in an easy-to-read guide the most reliable facts and statistics on crime, the economy, changing family structure, poverty, education, changing attitudes and values, and the shift in age structure in the United States.

As they point out, politicians and the media typically focus on single issues, positing simplistic solutions for complex problems - crime, for example - solutions that can't work because they don't take into account how other problems affect crime rates. In this book, the authors provide not only the relevant facts and figures, they also highlight the interrelationships among these factors. They show, for example, how education and changing family structure affect poverty rates and how all three might affect the level of crime in America. Finally, this is the first book that doesn't just show us what the current data is - it also shows how today's economic and social trends will serve to determine the fate of future generations. Anyone who wants the real facts on how Americans are faring today and what we can expect in the future will want this book.

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