Research

In March, The Chronicle of Higher Education, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, produced a microsite of college completion: it seeks to show “Who graduates from college, who doesn’t, and why it matters.” With data on 3,800 degree-granting institutions in the U.S., you can easily waste a lunch break (or two) exploring […]

Every year the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases new data about occupations and employment in America. They estimate how many jobs there are for doctors and actors, how many jobs there are in manufacturing and real estate, how many jobs there are in a multitude of other occupations and industries. And every two years […]

As a professional demographer, and one who studies and collects data on people for a living, one of the issues I frequently get asked about is privacy.  The topic has always been important in my work for the Weldon Cooper Center and it also has been front and center for the U.S. Census Bureau in […]

After last month’s Quinnipiac poll release for Virginia, I looked at whether there was a relationship between the improved job numbers (as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)) and Obama’s recent job approval ratings in the commonwealth.  This month, the BLS updated and revised all of its monthly unemployment numbers and Quinnipiac came […]

Although we often think of the chronically impoverished when we hear the word poverty, many more Americans are likely to experience poverty income at least once over the course of their adult lives.  It is important to keep in mind that the poverty statistics are snapshots in time.  They tell us the current economic situation […]

When I heard a recent story about the wage gap between working mothers and other working women on NPR’s Tell Me More program, I was very impressed with the host of the show.  UNM economist Kate Krause was one of three guests that joined host Michel Martin to discuss current research on the topic.  Often when we […]

The Federal Election Commission has been working to make the data from their campaign finance disclosures more accessible. For fun, I downloaded the file containing individual contributions to the presidential campaigns from Virginia and put together a quick table. Presidential Campaign Contributions from Virginia, January 2011 through January 2012 Candidate Number Total Average Obama, Barack […]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics release of 2011 annual averages of regional and state unemployment shows continued good economic news for both the nation and Virginia. Nationwide, unemployment rates dropped by 0.7% between 2010 and 2011.  Virginia saw a similar decline. Virginia’s 2011 unemployment rate (6.2%) was much lower than the national average (8.9%). Nearly […]

The latest Quinnipiac poll of Virginia’s registered voters shows President Obama making headway against the likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney.  Forty-seven percent favor the President over Romney (43%) in a hypothetical match-up; a marked improvement since late last year when polls favored Romney by slim margins. Quinnipiac Poll of Virginia Registered Voters: If the election […]

A recent article in the January 23, 2012 issue of National Review drew some interesting conclusions from a research paper by Casey B. Mulligan, a University of Chicago economist, about the growth of the social safety net during the ongoing Recession.  The interesting part, though, was not in the conclusions themselves, but in how the […]