This is a day when people of all ethnicities are cheerfully encouraged to wear something green. It is St. Patrick’s Day, a rare national holiday observed outside its native land. The day honors Bishop Patrick, born in England, who brought Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century, using a shamrock to illustrate divinity. The celebration here goes back to colonial times. New York City’s parade has taken place every year since 1762, and today is the largest such event in the nation. The greatest number of Irish immigrants arrived in the U.S. in the middle of the 19th century, when the home country was reeling from the potato famine. Now, 34 million Americans claim Irish descent, nearly eight times the population of Ireland itself. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at <www.census.gov>.
Sunday, March 16th. The first salvo in what we’ve come to know as the War on Poverty was fired on this date 50 years ago. Following President Lyndon Johnson’s State of the Union call for tackling poverty in America, the Economic Opportunity Act was introduced in and passed by Congress, with 11 program components. The landmark legislation was signed into law in August. The poverty rate in 1965, at the implementation of the programs, was around 16 percent, down from some 22 percent in 1959. The poverty rate continued to fall to a low of 11.1 percent in 1973. The past four decades has seen that rate edge upward. Last September, the Census Bureau reported the official U.S. poverty rate was 15 percent, encompassing 46.5 million people. Profile America is in its17th year as a Public Service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Saturday, March 15th. A number of various causes are recognized in March. Two of these seem to go hand in hand, or hand to mouth — National Nutrition Month and National Frozen Food Month. The goal of the first is make consumers aware of just how easy it is to eat healthy meals. And one of the ways this is possible is because of frozen food. Developed by Clarence Birdseye, the first commercially available frozen food was fish in 1925. Frozen food became increasingly popular as refrigerated freight trains and trucks were able to carry it to all parts of the nation. Today in the U.S., some 3,500 packaged frozen food wholesalers sell $85 billion worth of heat and eat products. You can find current data on the country’s economy by downloading the ‘America’s Economy’ mobile application at <www.census.gov/mobile>.