Making Data Easier

Google is upping the ante again in its quest to make data more accessible and easier to work with. The company has launched search capability for public data, and they've kicked off by providing access to unemployment and population statistics. Type "Williamson County population" into Google, for example, and then click on the chart at the top of the search results. It will bring you to an interactive map that shows population change in Williamson County over time and allows you to compare Williamson County to other counties in the U.S. in a matter of seconds.

Add this new service to a growing list of tools like Gapminder and Many Eyes and you get the feeling that we're on the cusp of a giant leap forward in how people access and use public data to communicate. At the very least, presentations are getting a whole lot easier.

Brian Kelsey

New GDP Estimates for 2008

The Bureau of Economic Analysis this morning published 2008 estimates of real gross domestic product (GDP) by industry. A couple of highlights from the news release:

• No surprise that manufacturing led the downturn. Durable-goods manufacturing fell at an annual, inflation-adjusted rate for the first time since 2001. Goods-producing industry sectors accounted for only 18.9% of total GDP in 2008, which is the lowest since the BEA started collecting this data in 1947.
• Finance/insurance and retail declined for the first time since the early 1990s.
• Technology was a bright spot. Value added in technology industries increased by 9% in 2008. BEA notes that technology industries made up only 3.8% of total GDP in 2008, but accounted for 30% of real U.S. GDP growth between 2007 and 2008.

Unfortunately, we don't have comparable statistics for counties or the Austin-Round Rock metro area (BEA will publish 2007 data for metro areas in September). The latest data we have on the local manufacturing industry comes from IHS Global Insight. They estimate that manufacturing job losses in Austin-Round Rock will peak at -10.1% in 2009Q3.

Brian Kelsey

BEA Releases 2007 Per Capita Income Estimates for U.S. Counties

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis today released 2007 estimates for per capita income in U.S. counties. The lag on federal and state data sources can be frustrating, but given the limited resources dedicated to most statistical programs, we'll take what we can get.

Here are the new figures for the counties in CAPCOG's service area. The inflation-adjusted change from 2006 is noted in parenthesis.

Bastrop $26,011 (0.9%)
Blanco $37,135 (6.7%)
Burnet $33,413 (2.0%)
Caldwell $23,849 (0.6%)
Fayette $35,196 (3.6%)
Hays $28,729 (-0.7%)
Lee $30,524 (4.1%)
Llano $31,698 (3.0%)
Travis $40,430 (-2.0%)
Williamson $35,659 (2.9%)

Note that Blanco County now has the second-highest per capita income in the region, and Fayette County is trailing Williamson County by only a few hundred dollars. I'm not sure yet what to make of the significant gains in the rural counties. Thoughts?

Brian Kelsey

Unemployment Indicators

We've watched the unemployment rate for the Austin-Round Rock metro area climb from 3.7% at the beginning of the recession in December 2007 to 6.2% in March 2009. Unemployment in Travis County now stands at 5.9%. We see these figures reported on every month, but what do we really know about how the recession is impacting our labor market? Knowing simply whether the unemployment rate is moving up or down is an important (lagging) indicator of general economic conditions, but it doesn't provide much in the way of useful information.

We've been working on this question lately with Workforce Solutions Capital Area. When people file for unemployment insurance--UI claimants in workforce parlance--they are asked several questions such as race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and military service. Using the UI claimant records (with all personal identifiers like name and address deleted), we were able to put together a more complete picture of the people behind the unemployment statistics we see reported every month. A few disclaimers: (1) Not all workers are covered by UI so this analysis leaves out a lot of folks (e.g., self-employment); (2) the data includes only people who filed for benefits; and (3) we've only scratched the surface so there's much more to be learned.

Here's a bit about what we've uncovered so far:

• 29,319 people filed for UI in Travis County between December 2007 and February 2009.


• African-Americans and possibly other minority groups are disproportionately represented among UI claimants, compared to their shares of the total population.


• Despite the fact that this recession is impacting all segments of the labor market--low-skill to high-skill--education is making a difference. In Travis County, 42.4% of the population age 25 and older has at least a bachelor's degree. People with at least a bachelor's degree have represented only 9.2% of all UI claimants since the beginning of the recession.


• Average age for UI claimants is 39. One out of five UI claimants is age 50 or older.


• The recession is impacting all career fields, but some more than others. Production workers have been hit especially hard. Production workers make up about 3.7% of all workers in Travis County. Yet, they represented about 10% of all UI claimants.

We've posted a short presentation called Unemployment Trends in Travis County on the CAPCOG website, which summarizes these findings.

Mining information on UI claimants can provide a valuable planning tool for economic and workforce development programs. We look forward to hearing your ideas on how we can use it.

Brian Kelsey

Welcome!

Welcome to CAPCOG's new Data Points blog. We're moving from our old newsletter format to this blog so we can publish more material and communicate more frequently with Data Points readers. We think you'll be happy with the switch--one less email to deal with.

A few parting words about the old Data Points. At last count, we had more than 2,400 people on the mailing list. Readership stretched across nearly every community in the ten-county Capital Area region, as well as several folks at the state level here in Texas. We've archived the Data Points articles on the CAPCOG website here if you'd like to go back and read them.

Thank you for your interest in local and regional planning. We hope you'll continue the conversation with us here on the blog.