Economic Data
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Analysis using total tax or per capita tax as a measure of tax burden on the citizens of a particular state can be misleading and misinterpreted. Different states use different approaches to taxation, and comparing only the total taxes collected by each state is not enough to understand the economic impact of those states’ taxes. The Census Bureau’s statistics on state tax revenues reflect the taxes a state collects from activity within the state, not…
North Carolina had nearly 9 times as many textile machine operators than would be expected based on national averages, according to recent analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Georgia had more than 10 times as many textile machine operators than would be expected. In these two Southern states, the relatively high concentration of these jobs—as compared to national averages—reflects historical economic patterns that persist today. Nationwide, just over 75,000…
The Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly publishes national unemployment rates by educational attainment for the highest degree attained for workers 25 and older. This analysis typically uses the Current Population Survey (CPS) data. Unfortunately, the CPS data are too small to provide high quality estimates for unemployment rates by educational attainment for individual states. Thankfully, there are multiple federal sources of statistical information available. The large sample size of the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American…
Nearly 4.5 million North Carolinians age 16 and older reported working in the 2013 American Community Survey. Of these, nearly three quarters, or 3.3 million, were of prime working age (25-64) and working full-time (defined here as 30 hours of work per week or more). Women made up 46% of North Carolina’s full-time employed population of prime working age. Although many occupations are increasingly integrated with respect to sex composition, a large number of occupations…
Craft breweries are small, independent, and traditional, according to the definition given by the Brewers Association. This means that they produce fewer than 6 million barrels of beer annually, are not controlled by an alcoholic beverage industry member, and predominantly brew beers that are made with traditional ingredients and flavor profiles. Although overall U.S. beer sales were down 1.9% in 2013, craft beer sales increased by 17.2%, driven in part by a steady increase in…
Colleges and universities can exert significant impacts on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of community populations. This is often self-evident in “college towns” such as Chapel Hill, where college students make up a large portion of the population. But, as Alemayehu Bishaw notes in a recent report for the U.S. Census Bureau, “even in large cities, a big student population living off-campus can impact [economic] indicators” such as the poverty rate. College students typically live in…
In the mid- to late-1800s, four out of every five North Carolina workers was employed in agriculture. Although agriculture and agricultural products remain vital to the state's economy, agricultural employment declined steadily through the late 20th century. At the same time, manufacturing emerged as a dominant employment sector, officially surpassing agriculture as the leading employment sector in North Carolina in 1950. Manufacturing employment in the state was at its highest between 1970 and 1980, and…
According to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, the 10 largest employers in the state of North Carolina are universities, hospitals, public schools, and banks. Duke University in Durham was the state’s largest employer in the 2nd Quarter of 2014, followed by Charlotte Mecklenburg Hospital and Wake County Public Schools. The Triangle’s other major research institutions—UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State University—were the 4th and 8th largest employers in the state, respectively. Four of the 10 largest…
“More and more, the U.S. economy is defined by its metropolitan areas,” writes Richard Florida at The Atlantic’s CityLab blog. Just over 90% of the nation’s economic activity occurs in metro regions. In North Carolina, the state’s 15 major metropolitan regions also comprised the majority of economic activity, but at a level less than the national share. In 2013, the state’s combined metro GDP was $407 billion out of a total GDP of $471 billion.…
Gross domestic product or GDP captures the market value of all goods or services produced within a country (or other defined region) in a given year. Put another way, GDP = Personal Consumption + Business Investment + Government Spending + (Exports – Imports) In 2013, the United States had a GDP of nearly $17 trillion – the largest GDP for a single country in the world. To put this in perspective, the U.S. GDP is…
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