Selected Characteristics of the Citizen Voting-Age Population

The U.S. Census Bureau released selected characteristics of the citizen voting-age population from the 2015 American Community Survey for all U.S. states and congressional districts.

These characteristics include selected age groups, sex, race, Hispanic origin, educational attainment, poverty status and household income.

Data USA

From Data USA, re its origins in 2014:

A team comprised of economists, data scientists, designers, researchers and business executives, worked for over a year with input from policymakers, government officials and everyday citizens to develop Data USA, the most comprehensive website and visualization engine of public US Government data. Data USA tells millions of stories about America. Through advanced data analytics and visualization, it tells stories about: places in America—towns, cities and states; occupations, from teachers to welders to web developers; industries--where they are thriving, where they are declining and their interconnectedness to each other; and education and skills, from where is the best place to live if you’re a computer science major to the key skills needed to be an accountant.

Data USA puts public US Government data in your hands. Instead of searching through multiple data sources that are often incomplete and difficult to access, you can simply point to Data USA to answer your questions. Data USA provides an open, easy-to-use platform that turns data into knowledge. It allows millions of people to conduct their own analyses and create their own stories about America – its people, places, industries, skill sets and educational institutions. Ultimately, accelerating society’s ability to learn and better understand itself.

The site was referenced in the New York Times in April 2016.

Demographic and Economic Profiles of States Holding March 1 Primaries and Caucuses

In advance of the March 1 primaries and caucuses, the U.S. Census Bureau presents a variety of statistics that give an overall profile of each participating state’s voting-age population and industries. Statistics include:

·        Voting-age population and estimate of eligible voters (i.e., citizens age 18 and older).

·        Breakdown of voting-age population by race and Hispanic origin

·        Selected economic characteristics, including median household income and poverty.

·        Selected social characteristics, including educational attainment.

·        County Business Patterns (providing information on employment by specific industries).

·        Statistics on voting and registration.

ZIP Codes.com

With its FREE zip code finder, ZipCodes.com has many ways of finding information.

Use it to: look up ZIP+4 of any address in the U.S.; find all the Zip Codes in a given radius; find the distance between any two Zip Codes (line of sight + driving distance/directions).

Long Island's Future: Economic Implications of Today's Choices

The Long Island Index released a report suggesting ways to improve Long Island’s economy and housing options. Accompanying the report is an interactive map that Steven Romalewski, Director, CUNY Mapping Service, and the team at the CUNY Graduate Center developed that provides historical context for the report, showing demographic change throughout Long Island over a 40 year period: 1970-2010.

The report is available at the Index’s website and the interactive maps are available here.

Facts for Features: Super Bowl XLIX: Feb. 1, 2015

Super Bowl XLIX will be played Feb. 1 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. This will be the second time the NFL’s championship game will be held in Glendale and the third time in the Phoenix metropolitan area. To commemorate this event, the Census Bureau has compiled a collection of facts examining the demographics of the host metropolitan area, as well as the metro areas represented by the two participants — the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks.

Go to <http://quickfacts.census.gov> for more statistics about the cities involved. Unless otherwise noted, all comparisons are statistically significant at the 0.10 level.

New England (Patriots)

10th                          

Where Boston ranked on the list of the nation’s most populous metropolitan areas. The estimated population of the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Mass.-N.H., metro area on July 1, 2013, was 4,684,299. The Boston metro area gained 42,204 people from July 1, 2012, to July 1, 2013. At the time of the Patriots’ first season in 1960, the 1960 Census population for the city of Boston was 697,197. Source: Census Population Estimates and Decennial Census <http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/PEP/2013/PEPANNCHG.US24PR> <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html>

44.8%            

Percentage of Boston metro area residents 25 and older who had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2013

How Young Adults Today Compare With Previous Generations in Neighborhoods Nationwide

Young adults today, often called the millennial generation, are more likely to be foreign born and speak a language other than English at home, compared with young adults in 1980, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest statistics from the American Community Survey released this week.

“Many of the differences between generations examined within these latest data reflect long-term demographic and societal changes,” said Jonathan Vespa, a Census Bureau demographer. “Three decades of decennial census statistics combined with the latest American Community Survey statistics give us a unique view of how — and where — our nation is changing. In this case, we can look at the changing characteristics of young adults over the last few decades.”

More from the Census Bureau.

What if Congress Was Like US?

Independently and in collaboration with local governments, business and not-for-profits in the Hudson Valley, the Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach's (CRREO) research mission is to: conduct studies on topics of regional interest; bring visibility and focus to these matters; foster communities working together to better serve citizenry; and advance the public interest in our region. In addition to Regional Education, a number of well established, regionally oriented New Paltz programs and activities have been assembled under the aegis of CRREO.

This series of maps poses the question: What if Congress was like us? Our government is a representative democracy. We send our elected officials to the Senate and the House of Representatives to represent our interests. The primary way our system selects for similarity is by geographic proximity: in the case of the Senate it is based on what State we live in, and for the House, each State is divvied up into congressional districts.

To answer the question above, we took the most recent census data available and the number of seats in each state, and created a profile for the House of Representatives for each State of what characteristics our representatives would have if they were proportional to the demographics of the people of that State. - See more at the Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach (CRREO)

Statistics/demographics on school children and their parents

Answers from a BUSLIB listserv question:

You can consult publications from the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics, such as the annual (see also earlier years):  Parent and family involvement in education, from the National Household Educations Surveys Program of 2012 (NCES 2013-028) - (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013028.pdf)

There is, a new book from Harvard University Press on this topic:  Robinson, Keith and Angel Harris. 2014. The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement with Children's Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (http://crsi.nd.edu/evaluations/new-research-on-parental-involvement-in-schools/).

Parent and Family Engagement, from the U. S. Dept. of Education (http://www.ed.gov/parent-and-family-engagement)

    

Child Trends: http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=parental-involvement-in-schools#sthash.s0sLCfPN.dpuf

 The Center for Public Education has:  Back to school: How parental involvement affects student achievement (full report) - (http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Public-education/Parent-Involvement/Parent-Involvement.html)

There's also the National Educational Association - a search of their site yielded 238 hits (for parental involvement and after school) - (http://www.nea.org/home/37004.htm?q=parental%20involvement%20and%20after%20school )  

African-Born Population in U.S. Roughly Doubled Every Decade Since 1970

      The foreign-born population from Africa has grown rapidly in the United States during the last 40 years, increasing from about 80,000 in 1970 to about 1.6 million in the period from 2008 to 2012, according to a U.S. Census Bureau brief released this week. The population has roughly doubled each decade since 1970, with the largest increase happening from 2000 to 2008-2012.

      The Foreign-Born Population from Africa: 2008-2012, a brief based on American Community Survey statistics, shows that the African foreign-born population accounts for 4 percent of the total U.S. foreign-born population. No African country makes up the majority of these immigrants, but four countries — Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Ghana — make up 41 percent of the African-born total.

      “The brief — the Census Bureau’s first focusing on the African foreign-born population — highlights the size, growth, geographic distribution and educational attainment of this group,” said Christine Gambino of the Census Bureau’s Foreign-Born Population Branch, who is one of the brief’s authors. “We have found that the African-born population tends to be more educated and accounts for a relatively large proportion of the foreign-born population in some nontraditional immigrant gateway states such as Minnesota and the Dakotas.”

      The foreign-born population from Africa had a higher level of educational attainment than the overall foreign-born population

The Tchotchke Index

The more Americans are willing to spend on tchotchkes—gift shop items, home decor trinkets, yard sale finds—the greater the economic confidence. Five years ago Demo Memo Blog created the Tchotchke Index to track excess consumer spending (here is the original post). The Tchotchke Index is the amount of money spent by the average household on "decorative items for the home," a detailed category in the Consumer Expenditure Survey. 

Sadly, the Tchotchke Index has plummeted to the lowest level on record.

More from Demo Memo

As the Nation Ages, Seven States Become Younger

The median age declined in seven states between 2012 and 2013, including five in the Great Plains, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today. In contrast, the median age for the U.S. as a whole ticked up from 37.5 years to 37.6 years. These estimates examine population changes among groups by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin nationally, as well as all states and counties, between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2013.       “We’re seeing the demographic impact of two booms,” Census Bureau Director John Thompson said. “The population in the Great Plains energy boom states is becoming younger and more male as workers move in seeking employment in the oil and gas industry, while the U.S. as a whole continues to age as the youngest of the baby boom generation enters their 50s.”       The largest decline in the nation was in North Dakota, with a decline of 0.6 years between 2012 and 2013. The median age in four other Great Plains states — Montana, Wyoming, South Dakotaand Oklahoma —  also dropped. Alaska and Hawaii also saw a decline in median age.

Births in 2013

At first glance, the 2013 estimate of births in the United States might seem ho-hum. The number changed little: the 3,957,577 estimate of 2013 was only 4,736 greater than the 3,952,841 of 2012 and remained at a level 8 percent below the all-time high of 4,316,233 in 2007.

On second glance, the estimate is startling. Although the overall number of births held steady, the fertility rate fell to a new all-time low of 62.9 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. This is 9 percent below the rate of 69.3 in 2007. Even more startling is the plummeting fertility of young women. In 2013, the fertility rate of women in three age groups--15 to 19, 20 to 24, and 25 to 29--fell to new record lows. In other words, never before have young women had so few children.


More from the Demo Memo

Headwaters: Economic Profile System – Human Dimensions Toolkit

EPS-HDT is a free, easy-to-use software application that runs in Excel, from your desktop, and produces detailed socioeconomic reports of communities, counties, states, and regions, including custom aggregations and comparisons.

EPS-HDT uses published statistics from federal data sources, including the Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce; Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor; and others.

2010-2011 Migration Data and 2010 Controlled Foreign Corporations

The trends data page for the Cornell Program on Applied Demographics now includes data from the latest IRS release, HERE.

Within the section on IRS migration flows, there are two sub sections that you can expand by clicking. One concentrates on moves between NY counties (empty for NY state as a whole), the other is an attempt to create “rates” that are comparable over time and between counties.

This shows some maps that can be made using this data.

Millennials in Adulthood: Detached from Institutions, Networked with Friends

The Millennial generation is forging a distinctive path into adulthood. Now ranging in age from 18 to 331, they are relatively unattached to organized politics and religion, linked by social media, burdened by debt, distrustful of people, in no rush to marry— and optimistic about the future.

They are also America’s most racially diverse generation. In all of these dimensions, they are different from today’s older generations. And in many, they are also different from older adults back when they were the age Millennials are now.

Read more from the Pew Research Center.

Program on Applied Demographics' subcounty profiles for NYS

In addition to the County profiles previously announced, Cornell's Program on Applied Demographics has recently produced booklets with data on towns, cities and villages in NYS. They contain data from the Decennial census, the population estimates program and the ACS. The data is organized by county.

Profiles for the Indian reservations within New York are in a separate booklet together with data on the American Indian population in New York.

All profiles can be downloaded here.

2011 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households

In June 2011, the FDIC sponsored the second National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households to collect data on the number of U.S. households that are unbanked and underbanked, their demographic characteristics, and their reasons for being unbanked and underbanked. This survey was conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau as a special supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS). The first survey was conducted in January 2009 and results were released on December 2009. Teamed with the rich demographic and geographic data available through the CPS, this survey continues to present a wealth of previously unavailable data on unbanked and underbanked households are available at the national, state, and large metropolitan statistical area (MSA) levels. It is hoped that these survey results will help better inform policymakers and the industry about economic inclusion issues, and promote the goal of ensuring that all Americans have access to basic, safe, and affordable bank services.

The FDIC undertook this effort to address a gap in the availability of comprehensive data on the number of unbanked and underbanked households in the United States. The FDIC also conducted this survey to comply with Section 7 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Reform Conforming Amendments Act of 2005 that requires it to conduct ongoing surveys of banks efforts to serve the unbanked and provide insights into the size of the unbanked and underbanked markets. Some of the key overall findings from the 2011 include:

8.2 percent of US households are unbanked. This represents 1 in 12 households in the nation, or nearly 10 million in total.
20.1 percent of US households are underbanked. This represents one in five households, or 24 million households. The 2011 underbanked rate in 2011 is higher than the 2009 rate of 18.2 percent, although the proportions are not directly comparable because of differences in the two surveys.
29.3 percent of households do not have a savings account, while about 10 percent do not have a checking account. About two-thirds of households have both checking and savings accounts.

More from FDIC.

Demographic Yearbook 2011

The Demographic Yearbook is an international compendium of national demographic statistics provided by national statistical authorities to the Statistics Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The Demographic Yearbook is part of the set of coordinated and interrelated publications issued by the United Nations and its specialized agencies, designed to supply statistical data for such users as demographers, economists, public-health workers and sociologists. Through the co-operation of national statistical services, available official demographic statistics are compiled in the Demographic Yearbook for more than 230 countries or areas throughout the world.

The Demographic Yearbook 2011 is the sixty-second issue in a series published by the United Nations since 1948. It contains tables on a wide range of demographic statistics, including a world summary of selected demographic statistics, statistics on the size, distribution and trends in national populations, fertility, foetal mortality, infant and maternal mortality, general mortality, nuptiality and divorce. Data are shown by urban/rural residence,
as available. In addition, the volume provides Technical Notes, a synoptic table, a historic al index and a listing of the issues of the Demographic Yearbook published to date. This issue of Demographic Yearbook contains data as available including reference year 2011.

Census Bureau Releases 2011 New Supplemental Poverty Measure Research Findings

The Census Bureau, with support from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released its second annual report, The Research Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2011, describing research on a new supplemental poverty measure. This measure extends information provided by the official poverty measure, released Sept. 12, by explicitly including benefits from many of the government programs designed to assist low-income families and individuals.

Today’s report compares 2011 supplemental poverty estimates to 2011 official poverty estimates for numerous demographic groups at the national level. In addition, for the first time, the report presents supplemental poverty estimates for states, using three-year averages. At the national level, the report also compares 2010 supplemental poverty estimates with 2011 estimates and examines the effect of excluding individual resource or expenditure elements.

According to the report, the supplemental poverty measure rate was 16.1 percent last year, which was higher than the official measure of 15.0 percent. Neither the supplemental measure nor the official poverty rate was significantly different from the corresponding rate in 2010.

There has been a continuing debate about the best approach to measure income and poverty in the United States since the publication of the first official U.S. poverty estimates in 1964. In 2009, an interagency group asked the Census Bureau, in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to develop a new, supplemental measure to allow for an improved understanding of the economic well-being of American families and how federal policies affect those living in poverty.

“There are several important differences between the official and supplemental poverty measures,” said Kathleen Short, a U.S. Census Bureau economist and the report’s author. “For instance, the supplemental measure uses new poverty thresholds that represent a dollar amount spent on a basic set of goods adjusted to reflect geographic differences in housing costs. The official poverty thresholds are the same no matter where you live.”

There are two other major differences as well. The official measure includes only pre-tax money income. Income for the supplemental measure adds the value of in-kind benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, school lunches, housing assistance and refundable tax credits like the earned income tax credit. Additionally, supplemental poverty measure resources deduct from income necessary expenses for critical goods and services such as taxes, child care and other work-related expenses, and contributions toward the cost of medical care and health insurance premiums or medical out-of-pocket costs.

Estimates for States

Using three-year averages (2009-2011), the U.S. poverty rate was 15.8 percent using the supplemental poverty measure and 15.0 percent using the official measure. However, the picture in individual states varied considerably.

There are 15 states or equivalents for which the supplemental rates were higher than the official statewide poverty rates: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

For another 26 states, supplemental rates were lower than the official statewide poverty rates: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Rates in the remaining 10 states were not statistically different using the two measures.

Comparing Poverty Rates for Different Demographic Groups

Unlike the current official poverty measure, the supplemental poverty measure can show the effects of tax and transfer policies on various subgroups. According to the report:

--Including in-kind benefits results in lower poverty rates for some groups. For instance, the supplemental poverty rate was lower for children than the official rate: 18.1 percent compared with 22.3 percent.

--Subtracting necessary expenses from income results in higher poverty rates for other groups. The supplemental poverty rate for those 65 and older was 15.1 percent compared with only 8.7 percent using the official measure. Medical out-of-pocket expenses were an important element for this group.

--Even though supplemental poverty rates were lower for children and higher for those 65 and older than under the official measure, the rates for children were still higher than the rates for 18- to 64-year-olds and people 65 and older. The 15.5 percent supplemental rates for 18- to 64-year-olds was not statistically different from the 15.1 percent rate for people 65 and older.

--Supplemental poverty rates were higher than the official measure for all race groups and for Hispanics, with one exception: blacks, who had a supplemental poverty rate of 25.7 percent and an official rate of 27.8 percent.

--Primarily because of geographically adjusted poverty thresholds, supplemental poverty rates differed by region. Supplemental poverty rates were higher than official rates for the Northeast and West, lower in the Midwest and not statistically different from the official measure in the South. These results reflect differences in housing costs.

The measures presented in this report used the 2012 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement with income information that referred to calendar year 2011 to estimate supplemental poverty measure resources.