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Science Policy 101: Building Our Future, Text Slide 3 of 25

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Slide title: Major Economic Transformations

Slide words:
The 1790 census counted some 4 million Americans, 9 out of 10 of whom lived on farms.
In today’s knowledge-based economy, the service industry employs about 75 percent the U.S. workforce. Manufacturing employs about 20 percent, and the number of people on the farm has fallen to less than three percent.
By 1900, only 50 percent of U.S. workers were employed on the farm. The other half of the workforce was split equally between the manufacturing and service sectors.

Slide images: Photos showing a manufacturing scene in a factory (left), a harvesting machine on a farm (top right), and computer chips (lower right)

Credit: © 2007 JupiterImages Corporation (all)

Design by: Adrian Apodaca, National Science Foundation

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