The Chicago Booth post, Never mind the 1 percent Let’s talk about the 0.01 percent, provides an insightful summary of income distribution at the top. Mankiw noted that the 1 percent’s share of total income, excluding capital gains, rose from about 8 percent in 1973 to 17 percent in 2010, …
Read More »How hot was the U.S. in 2017?
According to NOAA’s article, Assessing the U.S. Climate in 2017, it was the third hottest year on record for the U.S. It also wasn’t an El Nino year. In summary, This was the third warmest year since record keeping began in 1895, behind 2012 (55.3°F) and 2016 (54.9°F), and the …
Read More »What would minimum wage be if it grew with productivity?
According to the 3rd chart of EPI’s Top Charts of 2017, U.S. minimum wage would be $19.33 per hour if it grew at the same rate as productivity. If it simply grew at the rate of average workers it would be $11.62 per hour. The expectation that the minimum wage …
Read More »Is there a wealth gap due to discrimination?
The EPI provides evidence for yes in the 6th of their top charts of 2017, The racial wealth gap is the clearest legacy of past discrimination in housing markets. Their chart shows the differences for mean and median household wealth for black and white households. They key is housing: Besides facing …
Read More »Thank You from Sustainability Math
Happy New Year and thank you to all of you who have stopped by Sustainability Math this past year. If people didn’t visit the blog, then I’d stop writing. Posts will begin again next week. In the meantime, consider following Sustainability Math on Twitter and Facebook. Also, please let friends …
Read More »How are beavers creating a climate feedback loop?
The New York Times article, Beavers Emerge as Agents of Arctic Destruction, explains: … as climate change warms the Arctic and thaws the permafrost, the growing season extends. What was once tundra gives way to brush. This may allow beavers to move north. But in the tundra, the vast treeless region in …
Read More »In which city has winter warmed the most?
Find out by going to Climate Central’s post, See How Much Winters Have Been Warming in Your City. The winner is Burlington, Vermont, with about 7 degrees F of warming since 1970 (graph here from the post). There is a drop down menu where you can select from most major …
Read More »Where do you go to find the major climate events in the last 7 years?
You go to NOAA’s Event Tracker. The initial page is captured in the image here. Each dot represents an event. Scroll over the dot to get a title and summary, which you can then click on to go to the main story. On the bottom right you can select a …
Read More »How many people don’t have access to electricity?
The International Energy Agency’s Energy Access Outlook 2017 has your answer. For example, the chart here answers the question for 2000 and 2015 with an interesting graphic that includes how the change occurred. In 2000, 1684 million people lacked access, 1130 million people gained access, but population grew by 557 …
Read More »How do types of electricity production compare?
The Our World in Data blog post, A sense of units and scale for electrical energy production and consumption has the graph here. It provides a comparison of the scale of different types of electricity production along with comparisons to consumption. For example the Three Gorges Dam is worth 270,000 …
Read More »