Teens Are Having Much Less Sex Than Their Parents Did at That Age
Adolescents may be thinking about sex all the time, but fewer teens are actually doing the deed. Since 1988, sex has dropped by 14 percent among teenage females (ages 15 to 19) and 22 percent among teenage males (ages 15 to 19). The latest study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics shows that 44 percent of female teenagers and 47 percent of male teenagers had experienced sexual intercourse at least once.
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The good news? The majority of them used contraception. From 2011 to 2013, 79 percent of female teenagers and 84 percent of male teenagers used contraception the first time they had sexual intercourse. Condoms were the most widely used method of contraception among teenage girls, followed by withdrawal (60 percent) and the pill (54 percent). Use of the emergency “Plan B” or “morning after pill” came in fourth, reaching 22 percent in 2013, and up from 8 percent in 2002.
About 70 percent of 15- to 19-year-old females said their first sexual intercourse happened with a steady dating partner, compared to about 50 percent of 15- to 19-year-old males.
Could all that sex education be working? Are teenagers watching more porn? Do teens have more access to contraception because of Obamacare? Then again, it could be all those episodes of reality TV they’re watching. Last year CNN reported a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that linked watching MTV’s 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom to a 5.7 percent reduction in teen births in the U.S. The study found a correlation between higher rates of viewership in certain areas with a bigger decrease in teen births.
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Despite teen births being at an all-time low, the U.S. still leads other developed countries in teen pregnancy. (New Zealand comes in second, followed by England and Wales.) And if parents are worried their teens won’t ever get off their iPhones long enough to have sex, they can relax. Most teens, or two-thirds of adolescents, will have sex by the time they’re 19.
GOP Tax Cuts Getting Less Popular, Poll Finds
Friday marked the six-month anniversary of President Trump’s signing the Republican tax overhaul into law, and public opinion of the law is moving in the wrong direction for the GOP. A Monmouth University survey conducted earlier this month found that 34 percent of the public approves of the tax reform passed by Republicans late last year, while 41 percent disapprove. Approval has fallen by 6 points since late April and disapproval has slipped 3 points. The percentage of people who aren’t sure how they feel about the plan has risen from 16 percent in April to 24 percent this month.
Other findings from the poll of 806 U.S. adults:
- 19 percent approve of the job Congress is doing; 67 percent disapprove
- 40 percent say the country is heading in the right direction, up from 33 percent in April
- Democrats hold a 7-point edge in a generic House ballot
Special Tax Break Zones Defined for All 50 States
The U.S. Treasury has approved the final group of opportunity zones, which offer tax incentives for investments made in low-income areas. The zones were created by the tax law signed in December.
Bill Lucia of Route Fifty has some details: “Treasury says that nearly 35 million people live in the designated zones and that census tracts in the zones have an average poverty rate of about 32 percent based on figures from 2011 to 2015, compared to a rate of 17 percent for the average U.S. census tract.”
Click here to explore the dynamic map of the zones on the U.S. Treasury website.
Map of the Day: Affordable Care Act Premiums Since 2014
Axios breaks down how monthly premiums on benchmark Affordable Care Act policies have risen state by state since 2014. The average increase: $481.
Obamacare Repeal Would Lead to 17.1 Million More Uninsured in 2019: Study
A new analysis by the Urban Institute finds that if the Affordable Care Act were eliminated entirely, the number of uninsured would rise by 17.1 million — or 50 percent — in 2019. The study also found that federal spending would be reduced by almost $147 billion next year if the ACA were fully repealed.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Mick Mulvaney has been running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since last November, and by all accounts the South Carolina conservative is none too happy with the agency charged with protecting citizens from fraud in the financial industry. The Hill recently wrote up “five ways Mulvaney is cracking down on his own agency,” and they include dropping cases against payday lenders, dismissing three advisory boards and an effort to rebrand the operation as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection — a move critics say is intended to deemphasize the consumer part of the agency’s mission.
Mulvaney recently scored a small victory on the last point, changing the sign in the agency’s building to the new initials. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not exist,” Mulvaney told Congress in April, and now he’s proven the point, at least when it comes to the sign in his lobby (h/t to Vox and thanks to Alan Zibel of Public Citizen for the photo, via Twitter).
