What's New — June 2000
NEW LINKS ADDED
We’ve
recently added a number of new links to the site, including:
·
Educational
attainment data for states and metro areas, from the Census
Bureau; (http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/educ-attn.html)
·
Rankings
and data for 212 U.S. business schools, from U.S.
News and World Report; (http://www.businessweek.com/@@1w2fjIQAHbJcdAAA/bschools/index.html)
·
Quarterly
venture capital investments for states and metro areas, from the
National Venture Capital Association; (http://www.nvca.org/ffax.html)
·
Analysis
of venture capital disbursements for 27 metro areas, from
Carnegie-Mellon University; (http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/ced/topics/t2vc/region.html)
and
·
Data
on highway infrastructure, by state, from the Federal Highway
Administration. (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/ohimprod.htm)
Web Page Highlights
The
Bureau of Labor Statistics recently made a number of improvements to
their web site. We
thought you’d like to know about several of them:
·
Economy
at a Glance
– BLS collects and disseminates state and local data on a wide
variety of socioeconomic topics, including employment and
unemployment, prices, and compensation.
Until recently, to collect data on each topic for your area,
you had to visit the individual web site for each data series and go
through a fairly tedious set of screens.
Now you can click on your state or metro area on the BLS
Economy at a Glance web site (http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.map.htm)
and you’ll get a table giving you recent data on labor force, jobs,
and prices, with historical time series a click away.
·
Local
Area Unemployment Statistics
– In the same vein, the BLS LAUS program has provided a short cut on
its site for access to unemployment data.
A new Special Data Tables page (http://www.bls.gov/laurank.htm)
gives you annual average unemployment rate tables for states, metro
areas, and large cities.
·
Geographic
Profile of Employment and Unemployment
– One of the less well known BLS reports is the annual Geographic
Profile of Employment and Unemployment, which disaggregates data
on the employed and unemployed in all states, 50 metro areas, and 17
central cities by a variety of characteristics, including as gender,
race, age, occupation, industry, and full/part-time work.
Until two months ago, Geographic
Profile was available only in print or through ftp download.
Now BLS has provided access to an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) version
of the publication at http://www.bls.gov/opub/gp/laugp.htm.
In our travels through the wonderful world of data on the web, we often come across sites you might find of value. Here’s one:
· Earnings and Employment for Workers Covered Under Social Security by State and County 1996 – This annual publication of the Social Security Administration is the only federal data series we know of that offers a state and county-level count of wage and salary workers and self-employed persons (not jobs) and their earnings. As a bonus, the data are further disaggregated by gender and race. You can access this report at http://www.ssa.gov/statistics/eedata/index.html.
Stat-Scan: Latest Data News—Metro Definitions, 2000 Census and Economic Census
Metro Definitions – In our last issue, we reported that the Office of Management and Budget was due to issue final standards on the definition of metropolitan areas on April 1, 2000. However, the proposed standards appear to have stirred up some controversy, so OMB is adding another round of proposal and comment. The next proposal is due to be issued for comment in July.
Census
2000 Publications – The
Census Bureau has issued the planned released schedule for its Census
2000 Data Products. Highlights:
Planned
Release Data
Product
Lowest Level
Geography
Jun-Sep 2001
Population totals and
selected
characteristics
Places
Jun-Sep 2001
Population count by race
Blocks
Oct-Dec 2001
Population count by race
Census tracts
Jan-Nov 2002
Census 2000 Summary
Population and
Housing
Places
Characteristics
April-Dec 2002 Public
Use Microdata
Samples (PUMS)
Public
use microdata areas
2003
Census 2000 Summary Social,
Economic, and
Housing
Places
Characteristics
Economic
Census Geographic Detail & NAICS Debut – The
wait is over; all the geographic area detail for the 1997 Economic
Census is now available. Download
the geographic area report for your state at:
http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/ec97stat.htm.
In this pdf report, you'll find tabulations for metro areas,
counties and larger cities. The Economic Census is significant because
it is the first nationwide data series to be reported using the new
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
NAICS replaces the old Standard Industrial Classification
system and will be phased in for all the economic data series produced
by the federal government over the next few years.
Learn more about the new NAICS system by visiting:
http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/naics.html
Get
ready for a totally new and almost always longer set of industry
codes. NAICS has 19 "two-digit" sectors, that roughly
replace the old "one-digit" industry divisions of the NAICS.
Welcome changes include a new Information sector (NAICS 51) and
a separate accommodation and food service sector (NAICS 72). The
Economic Census has 17 reports for each state (one for each of these
two-digit sectors, except corporate headquarters and government).
To
find out how familiar old SIC codes translate into the new NAICS
categories, visit the Census website http://www.census.gov/epcd/naics/nsic2ndx.htm.
Here you'll find a concordance linking the two classification
systems. To help ease the
transition between the two systems, Census is publishing a
"bridge" report, showing the Economic Census data tabulated
according to both systems. Scheduled to come out June 29, you can find
this valuable reference at: http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/g97pbrdg.htm
To
get a snapshot of how the economy looks through the NAICS lens, visit:
http://www.census.gov/epcd/ec97/ustotals.htm
This site has national data for 1997 for every NAICS category.
You can drill down into the subsectors and industry groups and
the new 5-digit and 6-digit (!) industries, and view national totals
for shipments, payroll and employees.
As
we've said before, NAICS will be the mother of all series breaks, the
price we pay for fixing many of the inadequacies of the old SIC code.
Now is the time to start learning this new system.
But don't get too comfortable, Census and the other statistical
agencies are already at work to revise NAICS (much less sweeping), to
address emerging industries like e-commerce.