Labor Day 2014: Sept. 1

Labor Day 2014: Sept. 1

The first observance of Labor Day was likely on Sept. 5, 1882, when some 10,000 workers assembled in New York City for a parade. That celebration inspired similar events across the country, and by 1894 more than half the states were observing a “working men’s holiday” on one day or another. Later that year, with Congress passing legislation and President Grover Cleveland signing the bill on June 29, the first Monday in September was designated “Labor Day.” This national holiday is a creation of the labor movement in the late 19th century and pays tribute to the social and economic achievements of American workers. 

Who Are We Celebrating?

155.6 million

Number of people 16 and over in the nation’s labor force in May 2013. 

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table A-1

<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf>

                                         Our Jobs

Largest Occupations May 2013                                                       Number of employees

Retail salespeople                                                                                       4,485,180

Cashiers                                                                                                     3,343,470

Combined food preparation and serving workers,                                             3,022,880               including fast food

Office clerks, general                                                                                   2,832,010

Registered nurses                                                                                       2,661,890

Waiters and waitresses                                                                               2,403,960

Customer service representatives                                                                 2,389,580

Laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, hand                                  2,284,650

Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal                                 2,159,000

medical, and executive

Janitors and cleaners, except maids and housekeeping                                2,101,810

            cleaners 

 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupations with the Highest Employment, May 2013, <http://www.bls.gov/oes/2013/may/featured_data.htm#largest>

Largest Occupations 1910                                                               Number of employees

UN Draft Climate Report Leaked: Greenhouse Emissions Getting Worse, Not Better

From Daily Kos:

Those hoping for good news about the effects of climate change are not going to find it here.

Runaway growth in the emission of greenhouse gases is swamping all political efforts to deal with the problem, raising the risk of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts” over the coming decades, according to a draft of a major new United Nations report.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN panel of over 800 scientists and climate experts that periodically assesses and updates the state of climate research, will release its summary "synthesis" report in October.  A draft version of the report, still subject to final editing, was provided to member governments this week and a copy was obtained by the New York Times.  While much of the research underlying the synthesis document can be found in the IPCC's three Working Group Reports released during the past year, the summary and conclusions carry particular weight and are presented in starker language designed to motivate lawmakers from those countries that choose to pay attention.

End the Tyranny of 24/7 Email

From the New York Times

THIS Labor Day weekend, odds are you’ll peek at your work email on your "day off" — and then feel guilty about it.

You might envy the serene workers at Daimler, the German automaker. On vacations, employees can set their corporate email to “holiday mode.” Anyone who emails them gets an auto-reply saying the employee isn't in, and offering contact details for an alternate, on-call staff person. Then poof, the incoming email is deleted — so that employees don’t have to return to inboxes engorged with digital missives in their absence...

If this can happen in precision-mad, high-productivity Germany, could it happen in the United States? Absolutely. It not only could, but it should.

White-collar cubicle dwellers complain about email for good reason. They spend 28 percent of their workweek slogging through the stuff, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.

Journalists killed in the last decade, by country

From GlobalPost:

When James Foley was executed last week by the Islamic State, he became the 32nd journalist killed in 2014, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ has been documenting every work-related death of a media member since 1992. We've used CPJ's data to create the graphic below, which provides information about the journalists killed around the world in the last decade.

CPJ defines journalists as "people who cover news or comment on public affairs through any media — including in print, in photographs, on radio, on television, and online." That includes staff journalists, freelancers, stringers, bloggers, and citizen journalists.

The numbers we've used total the cases CPJ defines as "motive confirmed," meaning the death is directly related to the individual's work as a journalist.

As Office of US Courts withdraws records for five top benches, can we make them open?

From http://boingboing.net/2014/08/27/as-office-of-us-courts-withdra.html BoingBoing:

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud writes, "The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has announced that they are removing the archives for 5 important courts from their infamous PACER system. PACER is the ten-cent-per-page access to U.S. District and Appeals courts dockets and opinions."

Public.Resource.Org, in cooperation with our friends at the Free Law Project and the Internet Archive have sent in formal proposals to 5 Chief Judges asking for an Administrative Order to access this data...

Our judiciary is based on the idea that we conduct justice public, not in star chambers and smoke-filled back rooms. Our system of justice is based on access to the workings of our courts, and when you hide those workings behind a pay wall, you have imposed a poll tax on access to justice.

Back to School: 2014-2015

By August, summertime will be winding down and vacations will be coming to an end, signaling that back-to-school time is near. It’s a time that many children eagerly anticipate — catching up with old friends and making new ones, and settling into a new daily routine. Parents and children alike scan newspapers and websites looking for sales on a multitude of school supplies and the latest clothing fads and essentials. This edition of Facts for Features highlights the many statistics associated with the return to classrooms by our nation’s students and teachers.

Back-to-School Shopping

$8.6 billion  

The estimated amount of money spent at family clothing stores in August 2013. Sales at bookstores in August 2013 were estimated at $1.6 billion. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Monthly Retail Trade and Food Services <http://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/excel/mrtssales92-present.xls>

For back-to-school shopping, choices of retail establishments abound: In 2012, there were 25,421 family clothing stores, 6,945 children and infants clothing stores, 25,455 shoe stores 7,443 office supply and stationery stores, 20,893 sporting goods stores, 7,244 book stores and 8,196 department stores. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 County Business Patterns, NAICS: 448210, 44814, 448130, 453210, 451211 and 4521<http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/BP/2012/00A1//naics~44813|44814|448210|451211|4521|453210>

Access to Broadband Networks: The Net Neutrality Debate

As congressional policy makers continue to debate telecommunications reform, a major point of contention is the question of whether action is needed to ensure unfettered access to the Internet. The move to place restrictions on the owners of the networks that compose and provide access to the Internet, to ensure equal access and non-discriminatory treatment, is referred to as “net neutrality.” There is no single accepted definition of “net neutrality.” However, most agree that any such definition should include the general principles that owners of the networks that compose and provide access to the Internet should not control how consumers lawfully use that network, and they should not be able to discriminate against content provider access to that network.

What, if any, action should be taken to ensure “net neutrality” has become a major focal point in the debate over broadband regulation. As the marketplace for broadband continues to evolve, some contend that no new regulations are needed, and if enacted will slow deployment of and access to the Internet, as well as limit innovation. Others, however, contend that the consolidation and diversification of broadband providers into content providers has the potential to lead to discriminatory behaviors which conflict with net neutrality principles. The two potential behaviors most often cited are the network providers’ ability to control access to and the pricing of broadband facilities, and the incentive to favor network-owned content, thereby placing unaffiliated content providers at a competitive disadvantage.

More from Congressional Research Service via Federation of American Scientists

A Picture Of Language: The Fading Art Of Diagramming Sentences

When you think about a sentence, you usually think about words — not lines. But sentence diagramming brings geometry into grammar.

If you weren't taught to diagram a sentence, this might sound a little zany. But the practice has a long — and controversial — history in U.S. schools.

And while it was once commonplace, many people today don't even know what it is...

Burns Florey and other experts trace the origin of diagramming sentences back to 1877 and two professors at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. In their book, Higher Lessons in English, Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg made the case that students would learn better how to structure sentences if they could see them drawn as graphic structures.

After Reed and Kellogg published their book, the practice of diagramming sentences had something of a Golden Age in American schools.

More from NPR.


Diagram sentences! (Works on only some computers.)

Gap Between Higher- and Lower-Wealth Households Widens

       Median net worth increased between 2000 and 2011 for households in the top two quintiles of the net worth distribution (the wealthiest 40 percent), while declining for those in the lower three quintiles (the bottom 60 percent), according to new statistics released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The result was a widening wealth gap between those at the top and those in the middle and bottom of the net worth distribution. Each quintile represents 20 percent, or one-fifth, of all households.

       “The types of assets that households hold may vary,” Census Bureau economist Alfred Gottschalck said. “Therefore, business cycle changes over time may affect households differently based on their net worth quintile and demographic characteristics.”

      According to  Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S.: 2000 to 2011 and associated detailed tables, median household net worth decreased by $5,124 for households in the first (bottom) net worth quintile and increased by $61,379 (or 10.8 percent) for those in the highest (top) quintile (Figure 1). Median net worth of households in the highest quintile was 39.8 times higher than the second lowest quintile in 2000, and it rose to 86.8 times higher in 2011. (Figure 2).

Hunger in America 2014

Read the report.

In many ways, America is the land of plenty. But for 1 in 6 people in the United States, hunger is a very real struggle. Many people believe that the problems associated with hunger are confined to small pockets of society, certain areas of the country, or certain neighborhoods, but the reality is much different.

Right now, millions of Americans are at risk of hunger. These are often hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot always make ends meet and may be forced to go without food.

A critical component to a healthy life is nutrition. From birth, the intake of vital nutrients is essential to the growth and development of a healthy individual. Good nutrition, particularly in the first three years of life, is important in establishing and maintaining a good foundation that has implications on a child’s future physical and mental health, academic achievement, and economic productivity. Unfortunately, food insecurity is an obstacle that threatens that critical foundation.

In the United States, more than one out of five children lives in a household with food insecurity, which means they do not always know where they will find their next meal. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in 2012, 15.9 million children under 18 in the United States live in this condition – unable to consistently access nutritious and adequate amounts of food necessary for a healthy life.

More from Feeding America.

36 percent not saving for retirement

From Bankrate:

An alarming number of Americans aren't preparing for the day when they'll need to live off their savings.

More than a third of adults say they have not started saving for retirement yet, according to a national poll accompanying Bankrate's monthly Financial Security Index.

Even Americans who are getting close to retirement age seem to be struggling when it comes to planning their financial future. The survey shows that more than a quarter of the respondents age 50 to 64 have yet to start saving for retirement...

While some people aren't even close to being ready for retirement, others say they have been saving since a young age, Bankrate's survey shows.

TradeStats Express: free state and US export data

Get the latest annual and quarterly trade data with TradeStats Express™ from the Census Bureau. Retrieve, visualize, analyze, print and download your customized output.

Includes:

Global Patterns of U.S. Merchandise Trade (example: U.S. Chemical Exports and Imports for All Countries)
Product Profiles of U.S. Merchandise Trade with a Selected Market (example: All Products Traded Between the United States and United Kingdom)

Global Patterns of a State's Exports (example: Exports from Texas to each country)
State-by-State Exports to a Selected Market (example: Exports to Ireland from each state)
Export Product Profile to a Selected Market (example: Products from Texas to Iceland)

Where people were born, by state: an interactive graphic,for 1900-2012

From the New York Times, which charted how Americans have moved between states since 1900. See how your state has changed!


The image of New York as a beacon that attracts all is definitely true for immigrants, but for people born in the United States, the picture is more complicated. With the recent growth in immigration, the percentage of foreign-born residents in New York is approaching Ellis Island days. But domestically, one of the less-noticed trends is the decline in population of blacks born in other states. Since 1980, the population of Southern-born blacks has declined by more than 350,000.

100th Anniversary of Panama Canal Opening: Aug. 15, 1914

In recognition of the centennial of the opening of the Panama Canal to world commerce on Aug. 15, 1914, the Census Bureau presents current data on the population of Panama, Panamanians in the U.S. and U.S. trade with Panama, as well as historical data on the population of the now-defunct Panama Canal Zone.

How many total ancestors do you have?

From the Daily Kos:

Genealogists identify ancestors by following paper trails preserved in archives, €”traditional and digital. Although the goals of genealogists vary, a large pedigree chart is one measure of success. Yet even the most fruitful family trees are unlikely to yield more than a few thousand ancestors.... Yet, as the mathematically-inclined will be quick to point out, one can never find the names of more than a tiny fraction.

So, is an answer possible? I think the beginning of an answer is possible, within certain limits. This is a question for what might be called theoretical genealogy. Like any question of this magnitude, no matter what the discipline, it requires some agreement on definitions. An ancestor is someone who could theoretically been the source of some of your DNA. I say "theoretically," because most of your ancestors could not actually have passed DNA on to you. The probability is too low, since your number of ancestors greatly exceeds your number of genes. So we are counting parents, plus grandparents, plus great-grandparents, etc., until we reach an arbitrary beginning. 10,000 BCE should do nicely, as it puts us at the very beginning of the Anthropocene, the planet's first geologic era caused by us.

Which metro has America's oldest housing stock?

Six New York markets are included on the list of 25 metros with the oldest housing stocks: Buffalo (second), New York City (seventh), Albany (ninth), Rochester (10th), Syracuse (11th) and Poughkeepsie (24th).

The opposite end of the rankings is dominated by Sunbelt metros. Las Vegas has the lowest proportion of old homes, 0.97 percent. Next are three Florida metros -- Cape Coral, Palm Bay and Port St. Lucie -- which are all below 2 percent.

All figures come from the five-year version of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2012 American Community Survey. The bureau defines a housing unit as any dwelling, including free-standing homes, apartments and condominiums.

The national rankings are limited to the 108 metros that contain at least 200,000 units.

From Buffalo Business First.

Robin Williams's death: a reminder that suicide and depression are not selfish

News of Robin Williams’s death due to apparent suicide, said to be a result of suffering severe depression, is terribly sad. But to say taking your own life because of such an illness is a ‘selfish’ act does nothing but insult the deceased, potentially cause more harm and reveal a staggering ignorance of mental health problems.

More from the Guardian.

13 Scientific Terms You Might Be Using Wrong

From Mental Floss:

When scientists use these words, they typically mean something completely different than what they do when non-scientists use them. Sometimes our definitions are too narrow or too broad, and sometimes, we use terms interchangably when they actually shouldn't be. We dug deep into the American Museum of Natural History's website to help set the record straight.

Suicide Contagion and the Reporting of Suicide

From the CDC, 1994:

Suicide rates among adolescents and young adults have increased sharply in recent decades... In comparison with older persons, adolescents and young adults who commit suicide are less likely to be clinically depressed or to have certain other mental disorders (3) that are important risk factors for suicide among persons in all age groups. This has led to research directed at the identification of other preventable risk factors for suicide among young persons.

One risk factor that has emerged from this research is suicide "contagion," a process by which exposure to the suicide or suicidal behavior of one or more persons influences others to commit or attempt suicide. Evidence suggests that the effect of contagion is not confined to suicides occurring in discrete geographic areas. In particular, nonfictional newspaper and television coverage of suicide has been associated with a statistically significant excess of suicides. The effect of contagion appears to be strongest among adolescents, and several well publicized "clusters" among young persons have occurred.

These findings have induced efforts on the part of many suicide-prevention specialists, public health practitioners, and researchers to curtail the reporting of suicide -- especially youth suicide -- in newspapers and on television. Such efforts were often counterproductive, and news articles about suicides were written without the valuable input of well- informed suicide-prevention specialists and others in the community.

Facebook scam: In Farcing, Thieves Ask 'Would You Be My Friend?'

Consider this scenario: You're on Facebook (FB), and you receive two friend requests, both from people you don't know. With one person, you have no mutual friends, and with the other, you have some. Do you accept either request? Both? Just the one who shares your friends?

Scammers are banking on the likelihood you'll accept the request if you have mutual friends -- the more, the better -- even if you have no clue who the requester is. From there, they'll have access to everything you share with friends, and they'll start friending your friends and family to see what they share. All that good stuff helps them reach their ultimate goal: identity theft.

It's called farcing, and a researcher at the University of Buffalo published a study on it in an academic journal called Information Systems Frontier, saying these scams spread quickly and widely, as the scammer gathers friends and appears more legitimate.

More from Daily Financing.

Multiple jobholding in states in 2013

In 2013, the multiple-jobholding rate1 (the percentage of individuals who hold more than one job) in indi­vidual states continued to vary con­siderably from the national average of 4.9 percent, a rate that has been unchanged since 2010. Twenty-three states had multiple-jobholding rates significantly higher than the national average, 8 states had significantly lower rates, and 19 states and the District of Colum­bia had rates that were not significantly different from the U.S. average.

See data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Nonprofits statistics

From National Center for Charitable Statistics:

Nonprofit organizations include everything from neighborhood associations that meet a couple of times a year and have no assets to Harvard University and the Gates Foundation, each with tens of billions in assets. They include soup kitchens and traditional "charities" that serve the poor as well as your local church, the Chamber of Commerce, the Sierra Club, the United Steel Workers labor union, and the Metropolitan Opera. As you can see, there's no "one-size-fits-all" way to think about nonprofit organizations.
So we categorize. Nonprofit organizations can be divided by the subsection of the United States Internal Revenue Code 501(c) under which they fall.

Visit the Table Wizard reporting tool, which will allow you to filter statistics by STATE and COUNTY.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Education

The Copyright Advisory Office of Columbia University has a central mission to address, in a creative and constructive manner, the relationship between copyright law and the work of the university in order to best promote research, teaching, library services, and community involvement.

To that end, the Copyright Advisory Office of Columbia University:

Addresses issues of fair use, copyright ownership, and publishing arrangements in furtherance of higher education and the advancement of knowledge;
Provides copyright information and education resources for the academic community;
Supports innovative policies and practices to foster the creation, preservation, and accessibility of information resources; and
Undertakes research and exploration of copyright issues to provide supportive understandings of the law and its importance to educational institutions and libraries.

Check out this link!

The Mind Unleashed: pseudoscientific clickbait

From The Rational Wiki:

themindunleashed.org is a pseudoscientific, woo-peddling, clickbait website with a propensity to misrepresent data from studies and present it as scientific fact for their own gain. With just a soupçon of bigotry for flavor.

Neither the site itself nor the whois say anything about who owns and runs the place.

United States among the few countries without a guarantee of paid maternity leave.

There are 185 nations studied in the International Labour Organization's report, Maternity and paternity at work. "Oman, New Guinea and the United States are the only ones without a guarantee of paid maternity leave. In the States, if you have worked long enough for a company with 50 or more employees, you get 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn, adopted or foster child. Only in California, New Jersey and Rhode Island is any provision made for paid leave in these circumstances."

Read more in the Daily Kos.

Regulation of Bitcoin in Selected Jurisdictions

Source: Library of Congress


This report surveys forty foreign jurisdictions and the European Union, reporting on any regulations or statements from central banks or government offices on the handling of bitcoins as well as any significant use of bitcoins in business transactions. Topics covered include whether bitcoins are recognized as legal tender, the possibility of negative impacts on the national currency, concerns about fraud, and how transactions using the Bitcoin system are viewed by tax authorities.

Of those countries surveyed, only a very few, notably China and Brazil, have specific regulations applicable to bitcoin use. There is widespread concern about the Bitcoin system’s possible impact on national currencies, its potential for criminal misuse, and the implications of its use for taxation. Overall, the findings of this report reveal that the debate over how to deal with this new virtual currency is still in its infancy.

June 2014 update

Dancing statistics: explaining the statistical concept of correlation through dance

A four minute film demonstrating the statistical concept of correlation through dance.

Project title: 'Communicating Psychology to the Public through Dance' (AKA 'Dancing Statistics')

Founder & Co-Producer: Lucy Irving
Project Manager & Co-Producer: Elise Phillips
Statistical Lead & Co-Producer: Professor Andy Field
Choreographer: Masha Gurina
Filmmaker: Kyle Stevenson

These films were funded by a BPS Public Engagement with additional funding from IdeasTap.

How much do you know about the laws that govern us? And have you ever wanted to know exactly what they say?
The “Laws and Regulations” page at usa.gov is a good place to find out. Get details on recent laws like the Affordable Care Act, or laws that differ from state to state like gun regulations. You can also see bills that have been introduced in Congress and learn how to get involved and contact your elected officials.

United Nations metadata

UN data sets include:

The United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) stores more than 1 billion trade data records from 1962.

The Energy Statistics Database contains comprehensive energy statistics on the production, trade, conversion and final consumption of primary and secondary; conventional and non-conventional; and new and renewable sources of energy.

The Environment Statistics Database contains selected water and waste statistics by country.

FAOSTAT provides access to over 3 million time-series and cross sectional data relating to food and agriculture.

The United Nations Industrial Commodity Statistics Database provides annual statistics on the production of major industrial commodities by country.

International Financial Statistics (IFS) is a standard source of international statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance.

The LABORSTA is an International Labour Office database operated by the ILO Department of Statistics which has data and metadata on labour statistics for over 200 countries or territories.

Other entities address health, marriage and fertility, population, telecommunication, tourism, weather, and other statistical information.

Let’s Stop Pretending the Death Penalty Is a Medical Procedure

An editorial from Scientific American:

The idea of testing how to most effectively kill a healthy person runs contrary to the spirit and practice of medicine. Doctors and nurses are taught to first “do no harm”; physicians are banned by professional ethics codes from participating in executions. Scientific protocols for executions cannot be established, because killing animal subjects for no reason other than to see what kills them best would clearly be unethical. Although lethal injections appear to be medical procedures, the similarities are just so much theater.

Yet even if executions are not medical, they can affect medicine. Supplies of propofol, a widely used anesthetic, came close to being choked off as a result of Missouri's plan to use the drug for executions... The manufacturer feared that if the drug was used for lethal injection, E.U. regulators would ban all exports of propofol to the U.S....

Propofol is the most popular anesthetic in the U.S. It is used in some 50 million cases a year—everything from colonoscopies to cesareans to open-heart surgeries—and nearly 90 percent of the propofol used in the U.S. comes from the E.U. After 11 months, Missouri relented and agreed to return the drug.

Such incidents illustrate how the death penalty can harm ordinary citizens.

Anniversary of Americans with Disabilities Act: July 26

n July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodations, commercial facilities, telecommunications, and state and local government services.

Population Distribution

56.7 million

Number of people in the United States in 2010 with a disability. People with disabilities  represented 19 percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population. Persons with a disability have a physical or mental impairment that affects one or more major life activities, such as walking, bathing, dressing, eating, preparing meals, going outside the home, or doing housework. A disability can occur at birth or at any point in a person’s life.

By age —

• 8 percent of children under 15 had a disability.

• 21 percent of people 15 and older had a disability.

• 17 percent of people 21 to 64 had a disability.

• 50 percent of adults 65 and older had a disability.

Source: Americans with Disabilities: 2010 

2012pubs/p70-131.pdf>

20%

Percentage of females with a disability, compared with 17 percent of males.

Source: Americans with Disabilities: 2010 

<http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p70-131.pdf>

Where They Live

19%

Percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population in West Virginia with a disability ─ the highest rate of any state in the nation. Utah, at 9 percent, had the lowest rate.

Source: 2012 American Community Survey, Table R1810

<http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_12_1YR_R1810.US01PRF&prodType=table>

What local government employees make in New York State

The Empire Center for Public Policy released the 2014 edition of "What They Make," an overview of local government payrolls (outside New York City) for the period of April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014.

The Center's analysis revealed that 1,803 local government employees were paid more than the statutory salary of Governor Andrew Cuomo ($179,000).

The report includes:
Regional rankings of average pay for county, city, town and village employees.
Lists of the highest-paid local government employees in each region.
A list of the 50 highest-paid local government employees in the state.
Regional highlights: Capital Region, Central New York, Finger Lakes, Long Island, Mid-Hudson, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Southern Tier and Western New York.

Earth just experienced hottest June ever recorded

From BoingBoing

"The world just experienced its hottest June on record. The heat was driven in large by part by the hottest ocean temperatures since recordkeeping began more than 130 years ago. That makes this the third-warmest start to the year." This follows the hottest May recorded.

When looking at land areas only, this was the 7th-hottest June. Temperatures averaged over land were 1.7°F above average.

It’s the ocean surface temperatures that put the month over the top.

But, according to NBC News, it was only the 33rd warmest June in the United States.

Big city living costs more, but still gives you more bang for the buck

One thing you'll notice, if you stare hard enough at demographic data (or if you just travel around the country with eyes open), is the circular relationship between place, income, education, and housing costs. Whether that's a vicious circle, or a virtuous one, depends largely on whether you've been able to get inside the circle or not.

In other words, a place with well-paying jobs is likely to have higher housing costs, because more people wanting to live there to access well-paying jobs creates more demand, and landlords or sellers are better able to demand a bigger premium from those people. To have enough money to be able to find a place to live in a city with well-paying jobs, though, you already have to have a well-paying job (or a willing benefactor).

Likewise, well-paying jobs usually require more education. Obtaining more education requires tuition and fees, and the ability to defer wages temporarily while getting educated ... again, requiring a well-paying job (or that same benefactor). And getting a good education requires living in a place where a good education can be obtained, which tends to overlap with places with well-paying jobs and high living costs, again requiring you to already have money to get your foot in the door. It's a difficult carousel to get on, and a hard one to get back on if you get thrown off.

The increasing speed of this carousel—the greater disparity in pay between jobs that do and don't require a lot of education, the greater disparity in costs of living between places that do and don't have well-paying jobs—helps drive the growing inequality in this country, both economic and spatial inequality. Two different recent studies... shed some new light on the growing segregation.

More from Daily Kos.

New college data give fuller picture of graduation rates — and show challenges

From the Washington Post:

Dozens of public universities across the country..., report that fewer than half of their full-time freshmen in 2007 earned bachelor’s degrees after six years at those schools or after switching to other schools.

That finding emerges from an unusual cache of data posted on a nongovernmental Web site to provide what sponsors call “a more comprehensive and accurate picture” of college outcomes than can be found in federal records. The new data put a rare spotlight on a crucial group: transfer students.

The government tracks graduation rates for first-time, full-time students who finish where they began. But that omits the huge number who hop from school to school. Colleges are now stepping forward to fill in gaps in public knowledge through a site called Student Achievement Measure.

So far, 250 public colleges and 16 private schools have disclosed details about outcomes for the class that entered in fall 2007, including the proportions that:

●Graduated from their original school within six years.

●Graduated from other schools.

●Were still enrolled in quest of degrees.

●Had dropped out or were for some other reason untrackable.

These questions matter because every college student who fails to finish has invested a significant amount of money and effort — possibly going into debt — without reaping any of the economic or social benefits of obtaining a degree. Students of modest means, whose parents never went to college, are often those who face the highest hurdles in the effort to graduate.

This chart shows data for 266 colleges and universities, tracking outcomes for first-time, full-time students who entered college in 2007. See the chart.

Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics

The Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program is part of the Center for Economic Studies at the U.S. Census Bureau. The LEHD program produces new, cost effective, public-use information combining federal, state and Census Bureau data on employers and employees under the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership. State and local authorities increasingly need detailed local information about their economies to make informed decisions. The LED Partnership works to fill critical data gaps and provide indicators needed by state and local authorities.

Under the LED Partnership, states agree to share Unemployment Insurance earnings data and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data with the Census Bureau. The LEHD program combines these administrative data, additional administrative data and data from censuses and surveys. From these data, the program creates statistics on employment, earnings, and job flows at detailed levels of geography and industry and for different demographic groups. In addition, the LEHD program uses these data to create partially synthetic data on workers' residential patterns.

All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have joined the LED Partnership, although the LEHD program is not yet producing public-use statistics for Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands. The LEHD program staff includes geographers, programmers, and economists.

The mission is to provide new dynamic information on workers, employers, and jobs with state-of-the-art confidentiality protections and no additional data collection burden.

2012 Economic Census Shows U.S. Household Appliance Manufacturing is Down from 2007

Value of shipments for the nation’s 95 household cooking appliance manufacturing establishments totaled $4.3 billion in 2012, according to the latest 2012 Economic Census statistics released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. This value is down 10.8 percent from $4.9 billion in 2007.

The household cooking appliance manufacturing industry employed 10,324 people in 2012, down 34.0 percent from 15,638 in 2007. Average payroll per employee increased 23.0 percent from $30,199 in 2007 to $37,143 in 2012. The average number of employees per establishment in this industry decreased 20.1 percent, from 136 in 2007 to 109 in 2012.

Other highlights for the household cooking appliance manufacturing industry (NAICS 335221) include:

·          Total value of product shipments decreased 6.7 percent from $4.7 billion in 2007 to $4.4 billion in 2012.

·          Electric household ranges, ovens and surface cooking units comprised 57.2 percent ($2.5 billion) of the total value of product shipments in 2012, while 26.3 percent of units ($1.1 billion) were fueled by gas.

Majority of STEM College Graduates Do Not Work in STEM Occupations

The U.S. Census Bureau reported this week that 74 percent of those who have a bachelor’s degree in science, technology, engineering and math — commonly referred to as STEM — are not employed in STEM occupations. In addition, men continue to be overrepresented in STEM, especially in computer and engineering occupations. About 86 percent of engineers and 74 percent of computer professionals are men.

      “STEM graduates have relatively low unemployment, however these graduates are not necessarily employed in STEM occupations,” said Liana Christin Landivar, a sociologist in the Census Bureau’s Industry and Occupation Statistics Branch. 

       According to new statistics from the 2012 American Community Survey, engineering and computer, math and statistics majors had the largest share of graduates going into a STEM field with about half employed in a STEM occupation. Science majors had fewer of their graduates employed in STEM. About 26 percent of physical science majors; 15 percent of biological, environmental and agricultural sciences majors; 10 percent of psychology majors; and 7 percent of social science majors were employed in STEM.

      Approximately 14 percent of engineers were women, where they were most underrepresented of all the STEM fields. Representation of women was higher among mathematicians and statisticians (45 percent), life scientists (47 percent) and social scientists (63 percent). The rates of mathematicians and statisticians, and life scientists are not statistically different from each other.

2014 Global Peace Index

From the Institute for Economics and Peace

This is the eighth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks nations according to their level of peace.

The Index is composed of 22 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources and ranks 162 independent states, covering 99.6 percent of the world’s population. The index gauges global peace using three broad themes: the level of safety and security in society; the extent of domestic or international conflict; and the degree of militarisation.

In addition to presenting the findings from the 2014 GPI and its seven-year trend analysis, this year’s report includes an updated analysis of the economic impact of violence as well as a detailed assessment of country risk using risk models developed by IEP based on its unique datasets....

Iceland tops the Index again, with the ten highest ranking nations being all relatively small, stable democracies. Nordic and alpine countries are particularly well represented. Asia-Pacific is also represented at the top, with New Zealand 4th and Japan 8th.

The most peaceful region continues to be Europe while the least peaceful region is South Asia. Afghanistan has been replaced at the bottom of the Index by Syria due to a slight improvement in its peace combined with further deterioration of the situation in Syria. South Sudan experienced the largest drop in the Index this year falling from 145th to 160th and ranking as the third least peaceful country. Major deteriorations also occurred in Egypt, Ukraine and Central African Republic.

+ Direct link to Index (PDF; 9.4 MB)

+ Highlights (Infographic) (PDF; 2.7 MB)

+ Map (PDF; 1.6 MB)

+ Interactive map

+ Press Release (PDF; 339 KB)

2014 Global Destination Cities Index

The impacts of travel on destination cities that receive visitors are very significant from the business, social, and cultural perspectives. International visitors’ spending constitute an increasingly important source of business revenue in a destination city, encompassing the hospitality, retail, transport, sports, and cultural industries, among many others. In many instances, it is a major economic engine for employment and income generation for the city in question. Along with the flow of visitors comes the flow of new ideas and experiences that benefits both the visitors and the destination cities, which are just as important as the flow of spending. As a result, the more connected a destination city is to other cities, the more vibrant and dynamic it becomes.

MasterCard’s Global Destination Cities Index, now in its fourth year, provides an annual ranking of 132 of the most important destination cities in the world. It generates estimates of the total number of international visitors to each of these cities each year, their cross-border spending in these cities, and breakdown of their numbers by feeder cities. The index is therefore a global map of how these 132 cities are connected and the business potential generated in each of them by the inflows of visitor spending.

Why Classic Rock Isn’t What It Used To Be

Led Zeppelin is classic rock. So are Mötley Crüe and Ozzy Osbourne. But what about U2 or Nirvana?
...
What precisely is classic rock? As it turns out, a massive amount of data collection and analysis, and some algorithms, go into figuring out the answer to that very question.

No one starts a band with the intention of becoming classic rock. It’s just sort of something that happens. Figuring out which genre a band fits into... has always been a tricky part of the music business. Identifying what’s classic rock is particularly challenging because it’s a constantly moving target, with very different kinds of music lumped together under the same banner. How the people who choose what music you hear — whether on the radio or an Internet streaming service — go about solving this problem reveals a deep connection between data and music.

More from fivethirtyeight.com

Thanks to Dustbury for the tip.

Young First-Time Mothers Less Likely to be Married

Detailed tables Graphic | JPG | PDF | Blog The percentage of young first-time mothers who are married is dropping, according to Fertility of Women in the United States: 2012, a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. In the early 1990s, at least half of all first births to mothers younger than age 23 occurred in marriage. Since 2005, more young mothers were cohabiting (38 percent) than were married (24 percent) at the time of their first birth. However, the majority of all women continue to have their first child within marriage. Fertility of Women in the United States: 2012 uses data from the 2012 American Community Surveyand the 2012 Current Population Survey. The report examines women’s marital status at the time of their first births, the completed fertility of women up to age 50 and the fertility patterns of young women. Fertility patterns are shown by race, ethnicity, age, citizenship and employment status, as well as state of residence. “In this report, we explore changes in women’s relationship status at first birth over time, as well as fertility patterns of women up to age 50,” said demographer Lindsay Monte of the Census Bureau’sFertility and Family Statistics Branch, and one of the report’s authors. “It’s important to track these changes in fertility because recent research suggests that childbearing is related to women’s rates of employment, their educational attainment and their economic well-being.” The following are some highlights from the report on women and fertility: ·         In June 2012, 75.4 million women in the United States were age 15 to 50, of which roughly 44 million, or 59 percent, were mothers. ·         Of the 75.4 million women, 17 percent had one child, 23 percent had two children, 19 percent had three or more children, and 41 percent had not given birth to any children. ·         Roughly 5 percent of all women age 15 to 50, 4.1 million women, reported giving birth in the 12 months prior to the survey. The highest share of births were to women age 25 to 34 (52.3 percent). Only 2.3 percent of births were to women age 45 to 50.  Other highlights: ·         The average number of children ever born has dropped from more than three children per woman in 1976 to about two children per woman in 2012. ·         More than one in five women who gave birth in the year prior to the survey reported living in someone else’s home at the time of the survey. Seventy percent of these women lived in their parents’ home. ·         The nation’s official poverty rate was 15 percent in 2012, but 48 percent of young women (younger than age 23) who gave birth in the year before the survey lived in households that were below the federal poverty line, and 28 percent were in extreme poverty (below 50 percent of the federal poverty line). ***

Q&A with Census director John Thompson

Here is a link to a one page Q&A with John Thompson, Director of the Census Bureau, from the current issue of the American Statistical Association newsletter. John, like Bob Groves before him, is working to make substantial improvements at the Census Bureau. The use of technology to modernize the 2020 Census is part of the improvement process.

Half Of The United States Lives In These Counties

Using Census data, we've figured out that half of the United States population is clustered in just the 146 biggest counties out of over 3000.

Read more in Business Insider

How Increasing Ideological Uniformity and Partisan Antipathy Affect Politics, Compromise and Everyday Life

Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive – than at any point in the last two decades. These trends manifest themselves in myriad ways, both in politics and in everyday life. And a new survey of 10,000 adults nationwide finds that these divisions are greatest among those who are the most engaged and active in the political process.

The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. As a result, ideological overlap between the two parties has diminished: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.

Today 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican
Partisan animosity has increased substantially over the same period. In each party, the share with a highly negative view of the opposing party has more than doubled since 1994. Most of these intense partisans believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.”

More from Pew Research.

The Worst State in America for Black Children

From Identities.MIC:

Black families pondering a move to the Midwest might want to read this, especially if they have young children. According to a national report, Wisconsin has been ranked the worst state in the country when it comes to racial disparities for children.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, a 66-year-old charitable organization concentrating on family issues and well-being, spearheaded the study. "Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children" scored states according to 12 different factors, from educational access to socioeconomic status and home life. 

Wisconsin scored a 238 on its ability to prepare black children for educational and financial success, the lowest of all states (the average score was 345). Interestingly, Wisconsin was ranked 10th overall in its preparation for white children.

50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act: July 2

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. This landmark law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in public accommodations, in publicly owned or operated facilities, in employment and union membership and in the registration of voters. To mark the anniversary, the U.S. Census Bureau has gathered key statistics that measure changes in some characteristics of different race groups to date. Note: This analysis uses the closest available year for each race/ethnic group to the historic act. Analysis is limited because of limited historical data for all racial and ethnic groups.

Population

1964

20,671,914 — The total estimated black population in the United States.

10.8% — The estimated percentage of the U.S. population that was black.

2013

41,623,897 — The total estimated black population in the United States.

13.2% — The estimated percentage of the U.S. population that was black.

1970

9.6 million — The total estimated Hispanic population in the United States.

4.7% — The estimated percentage of the U.S. population that was Hispanic.

2013

54.1 million — The total estimated Hispanic population in the United States.

New Analysis of the State of the Nation’s 65-and-Older Population

A new report released by the U.S. Census Bureau provides the latest, comprehensive look at the nation’s population aged 65 and older, comprising 40.3 million in 2010.   

The 65+ in the United States: 2010 report contains many findings about the 65-and-older population on topics such as socio-economic characteristics, size and growth, geographic distribution, and longevity and health. For example, Americans 65 and olderliving in a nursing home fell 20 percent between 2000 and 2010, from 1.6 million to 1.3 million. Meanwhile, the share in other care settings has been growing.

“In the United States, older men and women are increasingly participating in the labor force,” said Enrique Lamas, the Census Bureau’s associate director for demographic programs. “The findings released today with the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health provide the most detailed information available on the demographic, economic, and  health and wellness characteristics of this rapidly growing dynamic population.”