$55.7 Billion

That's the amount Americans spent on our pets in 2013 according to a recent report.  Not sure if that includes actually buying the pet or just costs of ownership, but the fact is - that is a big number!!  

It prompted me to think about the amount spent on adoptions.  I tried to identify the actual number of adoptions occuring in the US annuarly through a couple of Google searches, and, of course, turning to my walking Encyclopedia of Adoptions, Deanne.  The best guess from the experts is about 135,000 adoptions per year in the US.  After averaging the cost of adoptions broken down into three catagories, domestice private, domestic public and international, my trusty calculator told me that American spend about $2.2 billion on adoptions every year. That's 4% of  $55 billion. 

There are a lot of reasons why Americans spend more on pets than adoptions and I know no one would ever say pets are more important that children, but it sure would be nice to divert a few billion dollars to adoptive parents who struggle to bring a human into their home.  

Comments

  1. You are so right this doesn't seem quite right. There has to be a way to open up a dialog on this one.
    It's so sad that there are so many children that needs to be adopted and it makes it almost impossible due to the high cost of doing that; especially for out of country adoptions.
    Blessings to you both for all you do and have done in this area.

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    Replies
    1. I wish we could help the world see how precious each child is and what a blessing they are to us. I have heard too many times that someone's pet is their baby. They have no idea what they are missing.

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