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We recently received a question from a reporter in North Carolina asking how to compare 2010 Census redistricting data to 2020 Census redistricting data when it is released on Thursday, August 12. This is a great question, and it can be localized. Here’s our guide on how to find the data, analyze the data, and what questions you can ask. For more great information, check out Tyler Duke’s GitHub containing a collection of data, methodology and…
In addition to the decennial census—the once-a-decade count of all persons and households in the United States—the U.S. Census Bureau regularly conducts more than 130 surveys and programs that help us understand population, housing, and business trends. Each of these programs is best-suited for specific purposes, and some of them, such as the decennial census, have multiple data products that are released at different times. In this post, we discuss the three key Census Bureau…
Once a decade we count everyone living in the United States in the decennial census, as we have done every ten years since 1790. Trying to count all Americans once—and only once—and in the right place is a herculean task. Although we talk about the Census in reference to Census Day (April 1, 2020), the process of counting all Americans begins years before Census Day and continues for years afterwards. We can break down the…
Earlier this year, we documented what we have learned so far about the pandemic’s effect on the educational system in NC. In this post, we detail how we expect data to be impacted across the education continuum, from Pre-K to career, with specific attention to 18 education indicators we monitor through the myFutureNC state dashboard. There are four main ways data can be impacted: 1. No data updates are available COVID-19 significant disrupted data collection…
This is the third post in a three-part series previewing redistricting in North Carolina. Earlier posts provide an overview of redistricting and a preview of what redistricting means for NC's House. Typically, redistricting starts in April, but the data delays because of Covid-19 pushed back the redistricting data release to August. Redistricting data from the 2020 census will be released on Aug. 12 at 1 p.m. ET. The redistricting files are expected to be uploaded…
This is the second post in a three-part series previewing redistricting in North Carolina. Other posts provide an overview of redistricting and a preview of what redistricting means for NC's Senate. Typically, redistricting starts in April, but the data delays because of Covid-19 pushed back the redistricting data release to August. Redistricting data from the 2020 census will be released on Aug. 12 at 1 p.m. ET. The redistricting files are expected to be uploaded…
This is the first post in a three-part series previewing redistricting in North Carolina. Other posts preview what redistricting means for NC's House and what redistricting means for NC's Senate. Shortly after the new population numbers come out from the Census, states redraw their legislative district boundaries. This once-a-decade process – called redistricting – ensures that voting districts across the country have an equal number of people in them, to comply with the principle of…
The labor force participation rate describes the percentage of people 16 or older who are working or actively looking for work. Nationally, the seasonally-adjusted labor force participation rate for the United States in June 2021 was 61.6%. In North Carolina, the participation rate was 59.2%, 2.4 percentage points below the national rate. Why does the labor force participation rate matter and what does it tell us? The labor force participation rate is a measure of how…
On March 24th, Governor Cooper directed $51.4 million in new funding to help students access and complete postsecondary education as the state recovers from the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding is drawn from North Carolina’s share of the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) fund, which are federal funds appropriated to assist educational institutions, from school districts, postsecondary institutions, and other education opportunities to reduce the detrimental impact from COVID-19. North Carolina will invest:…
The majority of North Carolina’s growth over the past few decades has been from net migration, meaning more people moved here than moved away. Recent population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau indicated that about 70% of North Carolina’s estimated growth between April 1, 2010 and July 1, 2020, came from net migration. The other 30% of our state’s growth came from natural increase, meaning more births than deaths took place in our state. Where…
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