What's New — August 2001

Site of the Month: National Commission on Entrepreneurship

One of the most closely watched indicators of economic development is the presence of high growth firms. For some time, it's been agreed that a high proportion of employment growth stems from relatively few fast-growing businesses. While many researchers have prepared estimates of growth rates from private databases, estimates from comprehensive data gathered by public agencies
have been unavailable, until now. The National Commission on Entrepreneurship has estimated the number of high growth companies in each of 394 labor market areas (metropolitan areas and groups of rural counties) throughout the US.  High growth firms are those for which employment grew by at least 15% per year between 1992 and 1997. Nationally, about 5 percent of all businesses met this
threshold.) The data are provided through the Census Bureau's Business Information Tracking System (BITS), using the same data source as County Business Patterns.

The site features an easy-to-navigate clickable map of LMAs showing the "Landscape of High Growth Companies," and also shows similarly sized LMAs ranked by the fraction of high growth firms in their economies.
http://www.ncoe.org/lma/index_states.html

Be aware, however, in interpreting these data that they only count the number of firms that meet the high growth threshhold, not the number of jobs associated with those firms. (A fast-growing firm that has 20 employees has the same weight as one with 2,000). As such, the report is a measure of the breadth of high growth activity in the local economy, rather than a measure of its impact on economic growth. For the limitations to this data, see:
http://www.ncoe.org/lma/report/not_measure.html

New Links Added

This month's new links highlight several sources of health-related data, including information on reproductive health, child health, health care
financing and medical research.

-Alan Guttmacher Institute
Query-based access to state data on pregnancy, childbirth, abortion, marriage and sexual activity, contraceptive knowledge and use, and contraceptive needs and services.
http://www.agi-usa.org/tablemaker/

State reports on various aspects of sexual and reproductive activity.
http://www.agi-usa.org/tablemaker/

Data for states and counties
http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/contra_tables.html

Pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates, 1985-96, by state
http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/teen_preg_stats.html

On pregnancy intentions and outcomes, and the nature of and need for contraceptive services
http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/state_facts/

-American Academy of Pediatrics
Annual reports (1994-latest year) providing data on child health and Medicaid enrollment and expenditures, with detail on participation by children, by state.
http://www.aap.org/research/medicaid.htm

Variety of state data on topics related to child health. Of particular interest:
http://www.aap.org/research/

Biennial report of the number of general pediatricians, pediatric subspecialists, general practice physicians, family physicians, and children in
each U.S. county.
http://www.aap.org/research/workfrc.htm

State reimbursement rates under Medicaid for more than 100 services commonly used by pediatricians.
http://www.aap.org/research/medreim.htm

-Health Care Financing Administration
Access to statistical series on health care expenditures by state and reports on participation in federal health care programs (Medicare, Medicaid, State Children's Health Insurance Program) by state and county.
http://www.hcfa.gov/stats/

Estimates of spending for personal health care services and products (hospital care, physician services, nursing home care, etc.) by state of provider and by two sources of funding (Medicare and Medicaid), 1980-latest year.
http://www.hcfa.gov/stats/nhe-oact/stateestimates/

National Institutes of Health Research and Development Spending
Research grants, R&D contracts, and training awards from NIH, for 100 cities, 1999.
http://silk.nih.gov/public/cbz2zoz.@www.cities.top100

State and Local Tax Estimates

One of the most frequently asked questions is economic development circles is how one state's tax burden compares with that of its competitors (real or perceived). While the importance of taxes to location decisions is debatable, interest in this question is not. One of the most authoritative and comprehensive comparisons of overall tax burdens comes from the Census Bureau, which periodically produces detailed data on state and local taxes and spending. The latest data, for 1997-98, has just been released, and is available at:
http://www.census.gov/govs/www/estimate98.html

Job Sprawl

"Smart Growth" is increasingly becoming a watchword in development strategies around the nation. How does your area compare to others in the degree of sprawl? A new study released by the Brookings Institution measures the concentration of employment in and around the central business district of each of the 100 largest metro areas in the US. The study is based on the Census Bureau's zip code employment data, and provides for each metropolitan area an estimate of the number of workers within 3 miles and 10 miles of the center of the central business district.
http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/publications/glaeserjobsprawlexsum.htm

Family Budgets for States

The Economic Policy Institute's new publication "Hardships in America," goes one step further than the usual critiques of the inadequacy of the current federal poverty line, and develops its own measure of "family budgets" for different areas throughout the United States. The analysis combines separate estimates of housing, medical care, transportation, taxes, and other expenditures for urban and rural areas (usually metropolitan areas and groups of rural counties) in each state. Food costs are assumed generally assumed to be equivalent
nationally for each family size. The result: for a family of two adults and two children, a family budget ranges from $2,250 per month in Hattiesburg, Mississippi to $4,343 in Nassau/Suffolk, New York. Estimates are for 1999.
The report contains separate estimates of family budgets, detailed by major expenditure category for urban and rural areas in each state. For the full list of estimates by family size and metro area, see:
http://www.epinet.org/books/hardships.pdf  (Appendix F)

For individual areas, see EPI's Basic Family Budget Calculator, with query-based access, at:
http://www.epinet.org/datazone/fambud/budget.html


Hardships in America also estimates the fraction of the population of households in each state with incomes below the family budget. Nationally about 29% of the US population have incomes below the family budget level in their community, compared with an official poverty rate of about 10% for comparable households. 
http://www.epinet.org/books/hardships.pdf

(See pages pages 20-21 in the pdf file).