Figuratively Speaking

Percentage of people who go to work when they're sick, according to a survey by Kimberly-Clark Professional: 59

Percentage of respondents who said it was because they were too important to the business: 30

Source: Kimberly-Clark Professional.

Age at which American workers expect to retire, according to a survey from PNC Financial Services Group Inc.: 67

Percentage of Americans in their prime retirement planning years who believe they will need to work longer than previously planned in order to save enough to retire: 49

Source: PNC Financial Services Group.

Percentage of American men aged 35 to 55, with $100,000 plus in household income, an associate's degree or higher and an interest in relationships with women who would try or have already tried online dating because they are a single dad or divorced, according to a survey conducted for AnastasiaDate.com: 33

Percentage of men in this group who struggle when meeting women face-to-face for the first time: 54

Percentage of those who are struggling who say their biggest struggle is that they do not know how to start a conversation: 45

Source: Anastasia International Inc.

Percentage of Americans who are employed and/or their spouse is employed full-time who report they are much or somewhat better off financially today than they were one year ago, according to findings released by Purchasing Power: 44

Percentage who say they have trouble meeting monthly household expenses: 28

Percentage who say they don't have at least $2,000 in emergency savings for unexpected expenses that occur: 44

Source: Purchasing Power LLC.

Estimated number of child laborers worldwide today, a third fewer than in 2000, according to the International Labor Organization: 168 million

Estimated number of child laborers who are engaged in hazardous work: 85 million

Estimated number of child laborers who live in the Asia-Pacific region: 77.7 million

Source: Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends.

Ranks of princess, minion, dinosaur, gangster and Ewok on the list of this year's most popular Halloween costumes for dogs, according to Wayfair.com: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Source: Wayfair.com.

In 2012, cumulative increase in the private holdings of the country's top 100 landowners to a total of 33 million acres, nearly 2 percent of U.S. land mass, according to the annual survey and ranking of the largest private landowners in the United States published by The Land Report: 700,000 acres

Ranks of Liberty Media Chairman John Malone and his 2.2 million acres, Ted Turner and his more than 2 million acres, the Emmerson family, Brad Kelley and the Irving family on the list of the largest landowners on the Land Report 100 list, which focuses exclusively on deeded acreage owned by individuals, families, family-owned companies and family-controlled foundations and excludes leased and public lands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Source: Land Report.

Percentage of Americans who felt a room's decor can positively or negatively affect someone's mood, according to a survey conducted by Wakefield Research for HomeGoods: 93

Percentage of all respondents who felt that simple decor updates -- improved lighting, stylish organizational solutions, decorative accents -- could make them feel happier without breaking the bank: 99

Source: Wakefield Research.

Percentage of U.S. adults who said they would seek a second opinion for a major home repair and/or improvement, according to a poll by Harris Interactive on behalf of Invisalign: 70

Percentage who would seek a second opinion for a major car repair: 50

Source: Invisalign.

Percentage of parents with children between the ages of 5 and 17 in 11 countries who agree on the importance of talking with their children about drinking alcohol, according to a poll by Ipsos on behalf of Anheuser-Busch InBev: 91

Average age that parents believe is the appropriate time to start talking with their children about drinking: 10 years old

Source: Ipsos Global.

Idle Thought

"As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to live it more and more." -- Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

Rank of New York City as chosen from a list of 48 major cities as the best place to do business, according to a global survey by Ipsos MORI on Global @dvisor, covering 18,147 people in 24 countries: 1

Rank of Zurich as the best place to live, according to the survey: 1

Rank of Paris as the best place to visit: 1

Source: Ipsos Mori.

Percentage of Americans who say they are "very happy," according to a Harris poll conducted in 10 major metropolitan markets: 33

Percentage of respondents in the Dallas/Fort Worth region who said they were "very happy," the highest among the 10 areas polled: 38

Percentage in the San Francisco market who qualified as "very happy" (least happy of the 10 areas measured): 28

Source: Harris Interactive.

Percentage of 35- to 55-year-old U.S. males with $100,000 plus in household income, an associate's degree or higher, an interest in relationships with women and an openness to dating online who have the intention of finding a serious relationship, according to a survey conducted for AnastasiaDate.com: 70

Percentage of these men who are open to dating a woman outside the U.S.: 78

Percentage who would definitely or probably travel to see a woman from another country whom they met online and with whom they had a connection: 50

Source: Anastasia International Inc.

Percentage of insurers who estimated that insurance fraud costs represent 5 percent to 10 percent of their total claims, according to a survey of U.S. insurers by FICO: 35

Percentage who said the cost is as high as 20 percent: 31

Source: FICO.

Percentage of parents who admit to having driven without their child buckled up in a car seat or booster seat, according to a study by Safe Kids Worldwide: 25

In 2011 in the United States, number of children ages 12 and under who died in motor vehicle crashes: 679

Number of these children who were riding without a child safety seat or seat belt that could have saved their lives: 221

Source: Safe Kids Worldwide.

Percentage of Americans who shop for groceries on a budget and worry about going over it, according to a study by the American Marketing Association: 33

Percentage more a budget shopper will spend when using a smart shopping cart -- a cart that displays the total price of the goods in a shopping cart: 22

Source: American Marketing Association.

With cold-and-flu season on its way, percentage of Americans who are germ anxious, according to a study by Kimberly-Clark Professional: 33

Ranks of the average desk where many people eat their lunch and the break room on the list of office germ "hot spots": 1 (tie)

Average number of germs per square inch found in these places: 20,951

Percentage reduction in average hot-spot germ counts that is accomplished by practicing good hand and surface hygiene: 59

Source: Kimberly-Clark Professional.

Percentage of America's children under the age of 18 who live with at least one grandparent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 10

Estimated number of those grandparents who are responsible for the children's care: 2 million

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Percentage of document processes in financial services that are still driven by paper, according to an IDC Financial Insights Market Spotlight: 37

Source: Ricoh Americas Corp.

Rank of San Jose, Calif., with an average weekly pay of $1,464, high-income concentration of 42.8 percent and economic growth of 17.6 percent, on the list of the top cities for the promise of high-paying jobs, according to a study by CreditDonkey: 1

Source: CreditDonkey.com.

Idle Thought

"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." -- Robert Frost

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

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.)