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Site of the Month: Education Week Interactive
New Links Added
U.S. Statistics of Business
Small Business Survival
State Finances
Previous updates

Site of the Month: Education Watch Interactive

Looking for data on educational performance by state? February's site of the month is one of the most elegant sites we've found: Education Watch Online's Ed Watch Interactive. It focuses on providing data on educational performance and equity by race and class, kindergarten through college. As you navigate through the site with drop-down menus, you'll get automatically generated charts that clearly show where each state ranks. You can click-through the charts and reports to get more detailed information for each state. The site includes a tutorial plus easily accessible and well-explained definitions and methodology. A real model of how to make data both accessible and transparent. Pay this site a visit:
http://204.176.179.36/dc/edtrust/edstart.cfm

New Links Added

This month, we offer a smorgasbord of new links.

Bureau of Labor Statistics
Union Affiliation of Workers
Data on worker membership in and representation by unions, by state.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t05.htm

Center for Women's Business
Women-Owned Businesses
Projected 2002 profile of women-owned businesses for states and 50 largest metro areas.
http://www.nfwbo.org/StateMetroReports.html

Death Penalty Information Center
Death Row Inmates by Race and State
Death row inmates by race and state, as of July 1, 2001.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/DRUSA-StateSumm.html

Death Penalty Facts
Data on executions and death row inmates, by state.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts.html

Economic Policy Institute
Weekly UI Benefit Amount Calculator
Estimates, by state, of the benefits a full-time, full-year worker might expect to receive should he or she become unemployed.
http://www.epinet.org/datazone/uicalc/

Comparison of State UI Benefits
Analytic paper (August 2001).
http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/divided.html

U. S. Statistics of Business

One of the challenges in analyzing employment data is to get past the "snapshot" quality of most published statistics. The US Census Bureau has constructed a longitudinal data file (using the same data that underlies the County Business Patterns series) that lets data users see the effects of firm births, deaths, expansions and contractions. You can find data on these dynamic changes in employment for states and U.S. metropolitan areas for three two-year periods (1995-96, 1996-97, and 1997-98) at the major industry level, at:
http://www.census.gov/csd/susb/susb.htm

Small Business Survival Index

The Small Business Survival Committee, a Washington-based advocacy group, has created its own index of state business climates based on a compilation of data on 17 major government-imposed or government-related costs impacting small businesses and entrepreneurs across a broad spectrum of industries and types of businesses. The index includes personal and corporate income tax rates, worker's compensation and unemployment insurance, minimum wages, right-to-work statutes and other policy indicators. You'll find their rankings at: http://www.sbsc.org/Media/pdf/SBSI2001.pdf?FormMode=&ID=0

State Finances

The current recession is having a major and direct impact on state revenues and budgets. To track trends in state finances, we recommend you visit the Tax Foundation. Here you'll find a useful summary of rates of major types of taxes, and data on the total amount of taxes collected by type of tax, going back to 1989:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/statefinance.html

Particularly interesting is the Tax Foundation's summary of state and local tax burdens as a percentage of personal income for each state (compiled from Census Bureau data). You can see what fraction of overall personal income gets paid in state and local taxes, probably the best single measure for comparing tax levels among states.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/statelocal01.html