Reports

Only 13% of adults say it's "very important" for them to be wealthy, ranking this personal priority far behind six others measured in a new survey .

At a time when the American economy is trending down and the unemployment rate is ticking up, one out of every seven U.S. workers fear they will be laid off in the next 12 months.

Americans feel stuck in their tracks. A majority of survey respondents say that in the past five years, they either haven't moved forward in life or have fallen backward.

If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants.

While blacks and Hispanics hold broadly favorable views of each other, Hispanics are less likely to say the two groups get along well. At the same time, African Americans are far more likely than Latinos to say blacks are frequently the victims of racial discrimination.

Race, ethnicity and politics can sometimes make for a volatile mix, as the presidential field of 2008 has begun to discover. But in the world beyond politics, race relations in this country are on a pretty even keel.

African Americans see a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race.

"Sharing household chores" now ranks third in importance on a list of nine items often associated with successful marriages – well ahead of such staples as adequate income, good housing, common interests and shared religious beliefs.

In the span of the past decade, full-time work outside the home has lost some of its appeal to mothers. This trend holds for both those who have such jobs and those who don't.

Americans believe that births to unwed women are a big problem for society, and they take a mixed view at best of cohabitation without marriage.