We don't have presses here at EconData.Net, but if we did, someone would have
stopped them so that we could headline March's Site of the Month:
Quarterly Workforce Indicators. It's not often that a dramatically new set
of data become available for tracking state and local economies, but this is one
of those rare times. Despite its humble name, Quarterly Workforce
Indicators, product of a partnership between the Census Bureau and 27 states, is
a huge leap forward in labor market data. .
What makes QWI different? Unlike most employment statistics, which
represent snapshots at a particular point in time, QWI is like a video that
captures the "action" in the labor market: How many people enter
and leave employment with particular employers each quarter; who is hired and
who is laid off, and how many jobs are created and destroyed? QWI tables show
a rich array of data on the dynamics of the labor market--quarter-to-quarter
changes in job creation, new hires, turnover, average monthly earnings, and other useful information for
states, counties, and metro areas by industry and by demographic groups. The data can be broken down
by industry and the demographics of the workforce. Underlying data are tied to
particular employers, so you can look at data on new hires, separations and
continuing employment for particular industries or particular age groups.
You can also see turnover rates by county, industry, or age group, and average
starting wages for new hires. You can get quarterly data from 1990 to 2003 depending on the state.
QWI is very much a work in progress. The look and feel of the site is a
bit spartan, and you won't find a lot of detailed explanatory
information--yet--but this is an extremely rich and very straightforward
site. The only bad news to report is that only 17 states are currently
on-line. Another drawback is that the site still relies on the Standard
Industrial Classification (SIC) rather than NAICS for reporting industry.
These are minor quibbles, though, and we expect this site to build on a very
impressive start, and add more states, in the months ahead.
If you want to see something truly new and exciting in socioeconomic data,
run, don't walk, to:
http://lehd.dsd.census.gov/led/01/004/frm_index_html.html
The latest salvo in the "Who's Up and Who's Down" pronouncements appears in the February issue of Inc. Magazine. This year, Inc. proclaims the best cities in the US in which to do business include Atlanta, Riverside, Las Vegas and San Antonio which take the top spots among large cities. Their analysis concludes that the action is moving away from "the fashionable coasts" to "more prosaic places." The authors also identify what they call the "10 worst metro areas" (which inexplicably include 13 metros). Among these are some of the fastest growing regions of the late 1990s: San Francisco, Raleigh Durham, San Jose, and large metro areas like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The rankings are based on a new methodology which the authors assert is "the most objective, reliable system found anywhere."
The Inc. website reports the rankings and total employment of each metro, grouped into large cities (67), medium cities (89) and small cities (120). The report also enables you to look up index numbers for "fastest, most sustained growth" and "most balanced economy and growth" for each city. The rankings are based on two indexes--one of job growth and the other of stability--that use 10 years of data but place most weight on data for 2003.
What should you make of these rankings? Inc.'s methodology puts a premium on stability, balanced growth, and recent economic performance. A better title for this list would have been "Top 25 Cities for Weathering a Job-loss Recovery." Places that did particularly well in the 1990s, but have been hit hard by the recession (because of a concentration in manufacturing, technology or other cyclically sensitive sectors) do poorly on the Inc. ratings. While the authors assert that those who do well on their rankings "now seem poised for rapid expansion as the recovery comes in"--the reverse may be true. The Inc. rankings are backward-looking and reward places that have been stable--largely insulated from swings in the national economy, meaning that they do better in recessions and periods of sluggish growth, but don't do as well when the economy is growing robustly.
Moreover, the Inc. Index makes its hard to see what's going on with particular cities. The authors don't report specific data (only their computed index numbers). And measured differences among cities on index values don't always seem to be particularly strongly correlated to their rankings. For example, consider New Orleans and Portland, Oregon. Overall, Inc. ranks New Orleans 18th best and Portland 8th worst. But the index data it reports for the two cities is almost identical. On the Inc. fast growth measure (scaled 1 to 100), New Orleans has an index of 59.7 and Portland 57.9; on a similar measure of stability New Orleans is 79.4 and Portland 77.6. Why do nearly identical scores on these two variables result in such dramatically different rankings? The answer is probably buried in the weighting and un-reported data, and you can't tell from what's shown on the site.
Because of the magazine's wide circulation, you'll probably hear or read
about the Inc. rankings. But before you trumpet success (or cry in your
beer) take a close look at what is being measured--things may not be as good (or
as bad) as they seem. You'll find a narrative, methodology, and Inc.'s
index number rankings at:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20040301/top25.html
One of the easiest to use sources of federal government data is the MapStats
page, part of the larger, interagency FedStats project. Earlier this year,
MapStats added profiles of US cities with a population of 25,000 or more to its
resources. The site provides a clickable map to select states and a
drop-down list of available cities (and counties). Profiles include a
diverse sampling of demographic, housing, business, income, geographic and
climate indicators. You'll also find data on women- and minority-owned
businesses, crime rates, educational attainment, and poverty. Profiles
list city and state data side-by-side to enable quick comparisons. If you
want a quick overview of the data for a particular city or county, this is a
good place to start:
http://www.fedstats.gov/qf/
March is leftover month for our new links. You'll find sites with data on non-profit organizations, libraries and religion in the US.
GuideStar, Philanthropic Research, Inc.
Database of Nonprofit Organizations
Query-based access to database
of 850,000 nonprofit organizations. Information provided includes mission,
activities, staffing, areas
served, financials, and IRS
Form 990. (Use Search.)
http://www.guidestar.org/index.jsp
National Center for Education Statistics
Library Statistics
Data on public, school, and
academic libraries, and library cooperatives, by state.
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/
Pennsylvania State University
American Religion Data Archive
Data on churches and church
membership, religious professionals, and religious groups (individuals,
congregations and denominations). Query-based profiles available by states,
metro areas, and counties; maps available by state.
http://www.thearda.com/arda.asp?Show=Home
The Pluralism Project, Harvard University
Religious Centers
Thematic maps by state of religious centers for
Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism.
http://www.pluralism.org/resources/statistics/distribution.php