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Fur Flies Over Lost Mink Census as Cuts Hit U.S. Economic Data
The mink industry in the U.S. is a mom-and-pop business that has gone global, making 80 percent of its sales to status-conscious Chinese fashionistas who find the fur chic. Sapphire and black pelts are in vogue this season. Or so American breeders are left to believe from anecdotal evidence after U.S. budget cuts eliminated the mink census this year. To save $60,000, the Department of Agriculture halted the annual survey that helped inform decisions on breeding and color, along with reports on commodities such as flowers, hops, catfish and rice costing $8.4 million to compile. Without the data, farmers have to guess about what’s selling. Read more here.
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BLS Releases Consumer Expenditures: 2012
Average expenditures per consumer unit1 in 2012 were $51,442, an increase of 3.5 percent from 2011 levels, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This surpassed the spending peak recorded in 2008, after which the effects of the recession led to a low of $48,109 in 2010. The 2012 calendar year increase in spending outpaced the 2.1-percent increase in prices for goods and services during the same period, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). This contrasts with 2010-2011, when the increase in average expenditures mirrored the increase in prices. Read more here.
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Improving the Economic Measurement Toolkit: Partnerships between Businesses and Federal Statistical Agencies
Businesses and federal statistical agencies have a long history of working together to produce something that is vitally important to both groups: the nation’s economic measurement toolkit. Steve Landefeld, director of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, charted the history of this collaboration and underscored the importance of continuing that partnership during a panel session Tuesday at the National Association for Business Economics’ (NABE) annual meeting in San Francisco. Read more here.
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How Census Measures Health Insurance
The Census Bureau is soon releasing two sources for health insurance statistics in the United States: the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS ASEC) and the American Community Survey (ACS). While both surveys have questions that attempt to measure the same phenomena, they go about it in different ways. Since 1987, the CPS ASEC has collected health insurance statistics every year, making it one of the most widely used sources of statistics on health insurance coverage in the United States. It provides statistics on health insurance status (insured or not insured), as well as type of coverage, for the whole nation, by demographic groups, and shows us trends over the last couple of decades. By combining two years of CPS sample, this survey can also provide state statistics on health insurance. Read more here.
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FY 2014 Research Grants: Art Works
The National Endowment for the Arts’ Office of Research & Analysis has announced grant application guidelines that are now available for Research: Art Works. This program supports research that investigates the value of the U.S. arts ecosystem and the impact of the arts, either as individual components within the U.S. arts ecology or as they interact with each other and/or with other domains of American life. Learn more here.
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How Census Measures the Foreign-Born Population and Immigration
Census Bureau statistics can be used to answer many questions about the foreign-born population in the United States. For example: How many foreign-born people are here? Where are they from? Where do they live? Are they naturalized U.S. citizens or noncitizens? Do they speak English? How many have a college degree? Are they working? How much do they make? What percent are in poverty? How many have health insurance coverage? Data from the American Community Survey can be used to answer these and many other key questions. As the nation’s flagship survey, the American Community Survey is designed to provide statistics on demographic, social, economic and housing characteristics of American communities. This includes the immigrant population. Read more here.
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NCHS Data Linked to Mortality Files
National Center Health Statistics has linked various surveys with death certificate records from the National Death Index (NDI). Linkage of the NCHS survey participants with the NDI provides the opportunity to conduct a vast array of outcome studies designed to investigate the association of a wide variety of health factors with mortality. Read more here.
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How Census Measures Income and Poverty
Income, poverty and health insurance statistics for 2012 from the Current Population Survey (CPS) will be released Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. One-year statistics from the 2012 American Community Survey (ACS) will be released on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013. In all likelihood, the national statistics from these two sources will not be identical. Why not? Which is correct? Well, it’s complicated. The Current Population Survey serves as the nation’s primary source of statistics on labor force characteristics. A supplement to the survey provides the official annual statistics on the nation’s income and poverty levels as well as statistics on age, sex, race, marital status, educational attainment, employee benefits, work schedules, school enrollment, health insurance, noncash benefits and migration. Read more here.
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Notable Data Publications
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Each week, the APDU Data Update identifies recent statistical data releases of interest to APDU members.
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Did you work on a great report that you want your colleagues to know about? Just email us and we’ll include it here.
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APDU maintains a list of open calls for comment on proposed federal data collections. We periodically alert APDU members to newly added calls for comment. Over the last several weeks, calls for comment on the following proposed data collections were published in the Federal Register (with due date):
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Census Bureau
- Notice of Program Reinstatement – Geographically Updated Population Certification Program (GUPCP)
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