Recent Posts

Unemployment risk varies by educational level

Unemployment rates have made headlines since the great recession hit. News headlines generally focus on a single unemployment rate for the country, or sometimes to differences by race and ethnicity. Another way to look at unemployment is by the educational attainment of workers. The figure below presents historical unemployment rates by education.  The figure makes…

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Will the New Supplemental Poverty Measure Change the View of Poverty in the U.S.?

The official poverty measure has been criticized for decades for being outdated, insensitive to geographic differences in cost of living, and unable to account for the expenses and government benefits that raise or lower a household’s available resources.  Responding to these concerns, the Census Bureau has created a new method for estimating poverty: the Supplemental…

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Deaths in the U.S. Attributable to Social Factors (American Journal of Public Health, August 2011)

A study by Galea et al. published in the August edition of the American Journal of Public Health concludes that the estimated number of deaths attributable to social factors in the United States is comparable to the number attributed to pathophysiological and behavioral causes.

Unemployment and Poverty Challenged Older Adults During the Recession (United States Government Accountability Office, October 2011)

A report by the GAO on the effects of the recession on the income of older adults (age 55 and over) finds that while the unemployment rate of older adults is lower than for younger workers, the rate doubled during the recession.