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The USDA Economic Research Service produces a lot of data about our nation's farms and food stuffs. Recently, they made their series of "the essentials" into an easy to navigate portal, filled with 70 charts and maps that highlight key information about everything from food prices and consumption to the interplay between agriculture and natural resources. While it's well worth exploring on your own, here were three of my favorites: The number of U.S. farms…
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…
“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…
The Labor & Economic Analysis Division (LEAD) at the North Carolina Department of Commerce has a new blog, the LEAD Feed, devoted to helping individuals and organizations better understand the workforce and economic development in our state. Launched in mid-September, the blog has averaged 2 to 3 posts per week across a diverse range of topics, such as the potential impact of Russia’s ban on U.S. pork on North Carolina’s exports and the impact of…
The National Science Board (NSB) recently released an interactive, online resource with data and graphics about student proficiency, college degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, and jobs in science-related occupations. While examining this data, I stumbled across a second web resource related to the NSB’s Science and Engineering Indicators 2014. The S&E Indicators State Data Tool provides data on 59 state indicators, such as elementary and secondary education metrics, the size of…
Nationally, more than a third (35%) of all twenty-something young adults were living at home in 2012. The largest share was in New Jersey: nearly half (48%) of New Jersey's young adults were still living in a household headed by their parent or step-parent. In three other states--Connecticut, New York, and California--more than 40% of young adults were living at home. In contrast, only 17% of young adults ages 20-29 were living with their parents in North…
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