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Dr. Michael Cline is the state demographer for North Carolina at the Office of State Budget and Management and has given us permission to re-post his content here. Each year, he publishes population estimates and projections for North Carolina and its counties. April marked the second month in a row that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a record number of open jobs. A recent study by the National Federation of Independent Businessesfound that nearly…
Early in the pandemic, many joked about the potential for enforced proximity in March to yield a baby boom later in the year. (Many others, including most demographers, suggested otherwise.) With preliminary data for 2020 births now in, there is clear evidence of a Covid-19 baby bust. Nationally, births declined 3.8 percent in 2020 compared with 2019, with faster declines occurring at the end of the year (November and December), when the first full impacts…
We publish an annual post with statistics about North Carolina’s veteran population. The most current version of that profile was published in November 2020. The profile contains the following information: Age of veterans vs. non-veterans Race & ethnicity of veterans vs. non-veterans Period of military service Labor force participation, income, and poverty of veterans vs. non-veterans Educational attainment of veterans vs. non-veterans In addition to this, we regularly answer questions about veterans in North Carolina…
The Verge recently published a county-by-county look at the broadband gap, showing counties across the country where less than 15 percent of households are using the internet at broadband speeds (25 Mbps or above.) In NC, 20 of our 100 counties meet this definition of "low broadband." A new program from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is trying to fill that gap. In late February, the FCC announced that they were launching a new Emergency…
Over the past year, the economic impact of COVID-19 has been at the forefront of pandemic response and state-wide reopening plans. In March 2020, businesses across the country closed – some of which have never reopened – resulting in unemployment levels that surpassed unemployment rates of the Great Recession in 2008. Although unemployment rates have improved, they have not fully recovered from a year ago. Those living in the U.S. have had to increasingly rely…
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) regularly publishes research supporting education, workforce, and learner success, by identifying different student educational pathways. Specifically, the NCSRC calculates the number of high school graduates who immediately enroll in college after graduation. In March 2021, the NSCRC released a report on on-time fall college data enrollment that addressed the impact of COVID-19. This report corrected an earlier December release that said that on-time fall postsecondary enrollment had declined…
The U.S. Census Bureau just released the first look at the results from the 2020 Census. The U.S. population is now 331,449,281. The nation grew by 22,703,743 or 7.4% since 2010. This represents the second slowest decade of growth on record, just after 1930 to 1940 when the nation grew by 7.3%. Utah (+18.4%) was the fastest-growing state, followed by Idaho (17.3%) and Texas (15.9%). Three states--West Virginia (-3.2%), Mississippi (-0.2%), Illinois (-0.1%)--and Puerto Rico…
The U.S. Census Bureau plans to release the latest state population counts on April 26, 2021 at 3 PM ET. These numbers, the first results from the 2020 Census, are used to determine how many congressional seats each state has in the House of Representatives. We’ve received a lot of questions about the upcoming release. I recently spoke to Rebecca Tippett, the founding director of Carolina Demography, about the release and what’s expected to happen…
Throughout the pandemic, The Daily Yonder has been tracking COVID-19’s impact on rural America. As of April 14, 2021, they reported that 14% of all COVID-19 cases in the U.S. occurred in rural (nonmetropolitan) counties. The rate of new infections has been lower in rural counties than metropolitan counties over the last two months, but the rural death rate was higher than the metro death rate. Today, we are taking a closer look at the…
The U.S. Census Bureau plans to release the latest state population counts by April 30, 2021. These numbers, the first results from the 2020 Census, are used to determine how many congressional seats each state has in the House of Representatives. We've received a lot of questions about the upcoming release. I recently spoke to Rebecca Tippett, the founding director of Carolina Demography, about the upcoming release and what's expected to happen in North Carolina.…
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