The CDC’s report, Provisional Mortality Data – United States 2020 (3/31/2021) provides the chart presented here. COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death, although there were only deaths attributed to COVID-19 for nine months of the year. There is also this: During January–December 2020, the estimated 2020 age-adjusted death …
Read More »How’s the labor market for college grads?
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s page The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates has a number of graphs related to employment for recent and not so recent grads. For example, their graph here is the percent that are underemployed defined as The underemployment rate is defined as the …
Read More »Which top 40 metro areas don’t have a baseball team?
In honor of opening day the Census Bureau posted Major League Baseball is Back on April 1 (No Foolin’) by Derick Moore (3/30/21). Twenty-five of the top 40 metro areas in the United States have MLB teams. As the ranking table below shows, 20 teams are in the top 21 …
Read More »What is the connection between life expectancy and education?
The PNAS paper Life expectancy in adulthood is falling for those without a BA degree, but as educational gaps have widened, racial gaps have narrowed by Anne Case and Angus Deaton (3/16/2021) provides an answer. From the abstract: We construct a time series, from 1990 to 2018, of a summary …
Read More »How has unemployment changed over the last year?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has an interactive graph of unemployment for cities from Jan 2020 to Jan 2021. Unemployment rates were higher in January 2021 than a year earlier in 376 of the 389 metro areas, lower in 9 areas, and unchanged in 4 areas. The largest over-the-year …
Read More »What is the distribution of global income?
The Our World in Data article How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty by Max Roser (2/15/2021) includes the graph copied here. Note that all countries incomes are adjusted for price differences so it is fair comparison from county to country. It is easy to forget how …
Read More »How hot was Feb 2021?
From NOAA’s Global Climate Report – February 2021: Averaged as a whole, the February 2021 global land and ocean surface temperature was 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20th century average—the smallest February temperature departure since 2014. However, compared to all Februaries in the 142-year record, this was the 16th warmest February …
Read More »Is there a polar vortex climate change connection?
The climate.gov article Understanding the Arctic polar vortex by Rebecca Lindsey (3/5/2021) is a complete primer on the polar vortex, jet stream, and what we know (and don’t) abut the connection to climate change. According to NOAA stratosphere expert Amy Butler, people often confuse the polar vortex with the polar jet stream, …
Read More »Why did wages grow in 2020?
The EPI article, Wages grew in 2020 because the bottom fell out of the low-wage labor market, by Elise Gould and Jori Kandra (2/24/2021) provides insights into changes in the labor market this past year. Key find: Wages grew largely because more than 80% of the 9.6 million net jobs …
Read More »How much wind power was installed in 2020?
From the eia article The United States installed more wind turbine capacity in 2020 than in any other year by Richard Bowers and Owen Comstock (3/32021): In both 2019 and 2020, project developers in the United States installed more wind power capacity than any other generating technology. According to data …
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