• SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Would be nice to see the homeless numbers expressed as a percentage of the population. The current view is misleading.

    • stephan262@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Well if I round the total homeless population to 600k and take the approximate US population to be 300M, then that would give a 2% overall homeless population.

      • pendingdeletion@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Close, but you’re way off!

        2% of 300M is 6M (6 million). So the percentage is closer to 0.2%.

        Also the percentage is useless without a comparison to Israel. The 2,250 number represents about 0.02% of their population! So still a massive difference, based on those numbers.

        • protist@mander.xyz
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          11 months ago

          Based on these numbers and current actual population estimates it would be 0.173% in the US and 0.023% in Israel

          I also think the “highest rates of depression worldwide” statistic is dubious.

          Spot on with healthcare and student loans though

          • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Thank you! That’s actually what I was interested in. Data without context is dubious, as you pointed out with the observation about the depression statistic. I can’t believe that statement as fact without knowing what the source data and/or methodology is; I.e. are they using the amount of antidepressants prescribed across the population, or did they send Phil out to take a tally of how many people are smiling at the park?

        • stephan262@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Yeah, I was way off… I guess that’ll teach me to check my working

          Also, good point with the comparison.