How Far Do You Live From Your Mother?

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According to Google Maps, I live 13.64 miles from my mother. This is less than the median of 18 miles for American adults:

The biggest determinants of how far people venture from home are education and income. Those with college and professional degrees are much more likely to live far from their parents than those with a high school education, in part because they have more job opportunities elsewhere, including in big cities.

….Families live closest in the Northeast and the South, and farthest apart on the West Coast and in the Mountain States. Part of the reason is probably cultural — Western families have historically been the least rooted — but a large part is geographical. In denser areas, people live closer together than in rural areas.

Married couples live farther from their parents than unmarried people, and women are slightly more likely to leave their hometowns than men. Blacks are more likely to live near their parents than whites, while Latinos are no more likely to live near their parents, but more likely to live with them, according to data from Mr. Pollak and Janice Compton, an economist at the University of Manitoba.

How far do you live from your mother?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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