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Dr. Mike McCurry, SD State Demographer & Director of SDSU's Rural Life Census Data Center
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Quick Links
Rural Life and Census Data Center Home Page
Link to Last Month's Newsletter
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Financial Crisis and Family Wealth
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 The Annie E. Casey Foundation released "Weathering the Recession: The Financial Crisis and Family Wealth Changes in Low-Income Neighborhoods" (http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412626-Weathering-the-Recession-The-Financial-Crisis-and-Family-Wealth-Changes-in-Low-Income-Neighborhoods.pdf ). It's a complex study, and the most interesting topic to me was "It is noteworthy that nationally, only low-income families (not higher-income families) increased their financial assets between 2007 and 2009 (Bricker et al. 2011)" on page 24. It's 28 pages, and has a lot of information.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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GPSA
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Mary Kills-A-Hundred, Graduate Student
and Employee of SD's State Data Center,
gave a presentation at the October 2012
GPSA Convention in Sioux Falls.
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Working From Home
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The Census has released " Home-Based Workers in the United States: 2010" (http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p70-132.pdf ). It's 32 pages of national level data - and it shows that more people are working from home, that over half the folks working from home hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and it shows the industries and occupations where working at home is increasing. It's a small pamphlet, and if you've thought about working at home, it may answer some questions.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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Jails in Indian Country
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The US Justice Department has released "Jails in Indian Country, 2011" (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/jic11.pdf) It's a 40 page document, so it's not particularly time intensive to keep up on this batch of statistics - and it's significant to those of us who live in South Dakota. One of the interesting facts published was that on the day when peak measurements are taken (Peak Day, 2011) Oglala Sioux Tribal Offenders Facility lead the nation - it was filled to 432 percent of capacity. The report has a lot of data beyond that.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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Obesity study released
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The National Center for Health Statistics just released NCHS Data Brief No. 106 - " Prevalence of Obesity Among Older Adults in the United States, 2007-2010" (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db106.pdf). It's a short little publication - only 8 pages - that contrasts the amount of obese older adults in two groups, those 65 to 74, and those 75 and over. For men (particularly men my age) this contains some eye-opening statistics: 43.9 percent of the white men between 65 and 74 are obese, and only 26.4% of the men who are 75 and over are obese. I can think of a couple of ways to explain this missing 17.5% of the nation's old white men - the happiest, but least likely explanation is that after the 75th birthday party, about 40 percent of old fat white men miraculously lose weight. It's probably more likely that being obese at 65 cuts down your chances of making 75 by about 40%. This is one I strongly suggest that my fellow old hefty folks take the time to read. It might provide the encouragement we all need.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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South Dakota
State Data Center Affiliates
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Black Hills Council of Local Governments
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Central South Dakota Enhancement District
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First District Association of Local Governments |
Governor's Office of Economic Development |
Karl E Mundt Library |
Labor Market Information Center |
Northeast Council of Governments |
Northern State University |
Planning & Development District III |
Rural Life Census Data Center |
Sioux Falls Planning Department |
South Dakota Department of Health
South Dakota Kids Count
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South Dakota State Data Center |
South Dakota State Library |
Southeast Council of Governments |
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World Life Expectancy
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World Life Expectancy has added a link to its website http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/life-expectancy-vs-healthy-years. It has calculations that I'd be hard pressed to do for a small population like South Dakota - but their information should supplement our most recent South Dakota Population Projections. It's nation-level data, showing the life expectancy in one column, and the "Healthy Life Expectancy" in the column alongside. "Healthy Life Expectancy" is an estimate of the years the hypothetical average individual will live without disability and disease.
The bottom nations are almost a step back in demographic history - in Swaziland, a woman's life expectancy is shown as 32.2 years, and the "Healthy Life Expectancy " column shows 31.0. The longest male "Healthy Life Expectancy" shown is San Marino - where he can expect 74 years of good health out of 78.5. Go ahead and click the link - based on "Healthy Life Expectancy" US men are sandwiched between the Czech Republic and South Korea. American women do a little better; they're still behind the Czechs, but ahead of their sisters in Chile.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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Post Secondary Institutions Stats
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The National Center for Education Statistics has released "Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2011 and Student Financial Aid, Academic Year 2010-11 First Look (Provisional Data)" (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012156rev.pdf ) This 17-page document shows how many people work in postsecondary (3,920,836), but includes the average costs and financial aid figures for all classes of colleges and universities. It might be handy for folks who are looking at students who are leaving for college next year - or even already there.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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Graduate students Eric Guthrie, Prekchya Singh and Mary Kills-A-Hundred (all employees of the Rural Life and Data Census Center) were among those presenting at the recent Great Plains Sociological Association (GPSA) Convention in Sioux Falls.
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Prekchya Singh answers questions about her presentation at the Annual GPSA Convention in Sioux Falls
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Eric Guthrie presented at the October 2012 GPSA Convention.
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The Value of a Degree
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The Census released "Field of Degree and Earnings by Selected Employment Characteristics: 2011" (http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr11-10.pdf ). It showed that physical scientists are at the top of the heap on median earnings, but were solidly in second place in the "Did not work" category. I was briefly surprised to see that about a third of the Education majors were in the "Did not work" category and that there are 2,737,000 people with a BS or BA in psychology - but for more data, click the link, and check out the annual value of your degree.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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State Facts
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The Kaiser Foundation has a health/demographic website ( http://www.statehealthfacts.org/index.jsp) called statehealthfacts.org. While the name would lead you to believe that the primary data available would be health related, the first section that shows up is "Demographics and the Economy." The data is state level, not county, but it is a quick source of state data, including poverty, employment, income, citizenship, incarceration - a host of quick answers on many topics . . . and that's before you look for the state level health information. Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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Religion Data
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The last US Census of Religions was completed many years before I was born - yet we still get questions about how many people attend a specific church, or a number of other religious behaviors. Usually we refer the callers to ARDA - the Association of Religious Data Archives. It's "quickstats" section is available at http://www.thearda.com/quickstats/qsdir.asp. I decided to check on the church I attend, and found out that, nationally, it had 33,246 clergy and 10,990,720 members in 1968. In the most recent year (2007) there were 45,186 clergy and 7,853,987 members. I have wondered about the business pattern. Anyway if you're interested in statistics about religion, this is probably the best website available.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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Arrests in the USA |
In October, the Department of Justice released "Arrest in the United States 1990 - 2000". It's 26 pages showing trends and facts about arrests in the past 20 years, available at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus9010.pdf. Across the nation, arrests for murder dropped in half between 1990 and 2010, male larceny-theft dropped in half, and auto theft dropped by 75%. I can understand that last one - when my chevy had an ignition part go out, it took several hours to hotwire it. It was a lot easier to hotwire cars back in the seventies. At any rate, if you're interested in where crime trends are headed, it's a good source of data.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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 Who Drinks Diet Soda? |
Sometimes there's a report that makes me wonder why anyone would research that topic - but that question creates its own interest, often compelling me to open the report. NCHS Data Brief No. 109, October 2012 "Consumption of Diet Drinks in the United States, 2009 - 2010" (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db109.pdf) fit that description. I figured the answer would be obvious - diabetics and people trying to control weight. I might even be right - but that wasn't what the study was about. There are social class elements to diet drinks - these drinkers compose about 20 percent of the population, are more likely to be white, and are higher income. It's kind of fun to see that there's a demographic study of who drinks diet soda.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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Taxes and the Economy
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On September 14, the Congressional Research Service released "Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945" byThomas L. Hungerford. It's 23 pages and available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42729.pdf . I listened to a lot of talk about what would happen if the tax rates were raised, or the Bush tax cuts eliminated - but I'm not quite in that top one percent, and neither were the people explaining things to me. On the other hand, this seems to be a decently researched study of how the top tax rates affect the national economy. One of the nice things about the internet is that we have access to a tremendous amount of information - and it is kind of nice to have the same reports available that Congress has.
Mike McCurry, Ph.D.
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