Corporate Profits Roar Back

Corporate Profits Roar Back

Catherine Rampell at the New York Times Economix blog writes that corporate profits are "booming" -- and by some respects she is ...

Read more
Percent Favoring Stricter Gun Control Continues to Drop, Remains at Record-Low

Percent Favoring Stricter Gun Control Continues to Drop, Remains at Record-Low

Americans' support for stricter gun control laws continues to erode, according to Gallup's annual Crime Poll, conducted October 7-1...

Read more
Report Takes Aim at For-Profit Colleges, Citing Low Graduation Rates and High Student Debt

Report Takes Aim at For-Profit Colleges, Citing Low Graduation Rates and High Student Debt

"Subprime Opportunity," a report by the Education Trust, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, claimed that the main contrib...

Read more
Consumer Prices Up 1.2 Percent in Past Year, Smallest Yearly Increase Since 1957

Consumer Prices Up 1.2 Percent in Past Year, Smallest Yearly Increase Since 1957

According to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday, over the past 12 months the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Co...

Read more
High Marks for Quality of Healthcare, Gallup Poll Finds

High Marks for Quality of Healthcare, Gallup Poll Finds

Analysis of Gallup's annual Health and Healthcare survey revealed that Americans remain satisfied with the quality of their healthcare...

Read more

Politics Never a Sure Thing

A New York Times article recently reported the rising influence of the GOP in the Midwest and Southern regions. The 2010 midterm elections c...

Read more
Healthcare Hard to Pay For

Healthcare Hard to Pay For

Dr. Andrew Carroll, a pediatrician at the University of Indiana, posted on a small health-care blog called the "Incremental Economist&q...

Read more
Despite FBI, Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports to the Contrary, Americans Believe Crime On the Rise

Despite FBI, Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports to the Contrary, Americans Believe Crime On the Rise

An early October Gallup poll suggests that two-thirds of Americans believe there is more crime in the United States than a year ago and nea...

Read more
Twelfth-Grade Students Unexpectedly Score Higher in Mathematics and Reading

Twelfth-Grade Students Unexpectedly Score Higher in Mathematics and Reading

The results of a series of tests known as the The National Assessment of Educational Progress published today suggest that average reading ...

Read more

Can You Balance the Budget?

The US government is projected to be $418 billion dollars in the red by 2015. This number seems daunting (and indeed economists suggest a...

Read more

Nearly 300 attendees took part in ICPSR's Virtual Data Fair

Nearly 300 people participated in ICPSR’s Virtual Data Fair from Nov. 8-11. Topics covered in the webinars included data management plans, s...

Read more
Just 34% Believe Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Just 34% Believe Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Despite the fact that the debate in the scientific community has been settled for several years, just 34% of Americans now believe there is ...

Read more
Little Change in Number of Job Openings in September; Remains 25% Above July 2009 Trough

Little Change in Number of Job Openings in September; Remains 25% Above July 2009 Trough

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that there were 2.9 million job openings on the last business day of September. The num...

Read more
Throwing the Bums Out?

Throwing the Bums Out?

Despite slogans from the populist movements on the right calling on voters to "throw the bums out," that is to say, to defeat all ...

Read more

Out of Wedlock as a Norm

An article in the Associated Press lists the percentages of unwed mothers with demographics separated along color lines and generated from 2...

Read more
Congressional Approval Rating Drops to 17%; Expected to Rise as 112th Congress is Seated in January

Congressional Approval Rating Drops to 17%; Expected to Rise as 112th Congress is Seated in January

A recent Gallup survey conducted November 4-7 showed that Americans' approval of Congress fell to 17%, down from 21% prior to the midt...

Read more

China's Trade Surplus Hits $27.1 Billion for Month of October, Adding to Political Tensions Over Currency Policy

The New York Times reports that China's trade surplus in the month of October totaled $27.1 billion, far outpacing its surplus of $16....

Read more

Redistricting --

Last week's elections received the most press for the fact that Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, but those majo...

Read more
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

After the second consecutive election in which the incumbent party has been at least partially booted from power over sluggish growth in emp...

Read more
Rusting Opportunities

Rusting Opportunities

A recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinal article lamented an undesirable ranking of the newspaper's home city. Milwaukee has moved up seven s...

Read more
U.S. Adds Jobs For First Time Since May but Unemployment Hangs Steady at 9.6%

U.S. Adds Jobs For First Time Since May but Unemployment Hangs Steady at 9.6%

Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 151,000 in the month of October but the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.6%, according to a...

Read more
Despite Gains in Election, Republicans Viewed as Unfavorably as Democrats

Despite Gains in Election, Republicans Viewed as Unfavorably as Democrats

Although their sweeping electoral gains would appear to suggest otherwise, the GOP was viewed in a negative light among a majority of voters...

Read more
Latinos and Democratic Turnout

Latinos and Democratic Turnout

Tuesday night was a bad night for Democrats who lost several governorships, several state legislatures, six (and maybe seven) senators, and ...

Read more
Unemployment Rate Drops in 212 of 372 Metropolitan Areas in Past Year

Unemployment Rate Drops in 212 of 372 Metropolitan Areas in Past Year

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that unemployment rates in September of this year were lower than a year earlier in ...

Read more

Low Youth Turnout Damages Democrats at Polls

In the 2008 election, young people aged 18-29 voted overwhelmingly Democratic. The gap between Democratic candidates and Republican candida...

Read more