Click here to view the animation of the geography of jobs in metropolitan areas

The Slate Group has produced a similar visualization of job gains and losses in counties over the past 3 years.

Click here to view the animation of the geography of jobs in counties

Both animations use data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Submit a comment below.

The discrepancy arises from using different formulas to calculate the number of people in poverty. The Census Bureau’s formula was created in 1955, and does not factor in the rising costs of medical care, transportation, child care, geographic variations in cost of living, or non-cash government aid. The NAS formula, which takes into account these additional dimensions of poverty, suggests that Census figures overlook millions of poor people.

The Census estimates the poverty rate is 13.2 percent, while the NAS estimates the poverty rate is much higher, at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans.

Read the full article from the Associated Press by clicking here.

Learn more about the issues surrounding the measurement of poverty by reading our definition of poverty measurement, and our paper on poverty measurement.

Submit a comment below.

According to the report, 730,000 Washingtonians lived in poverty in 2008, a number that remained unchanged from the previous year.  There was significant variation in poverty rates across communities in Washington, “with certain minority groups and counties experiencing higher rates compared to the general population.”

African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans had poverty rates well above the state average, whereas Whites and Asians experienced below-average poverty.

Among Washington’s 19 largest counties, the more sparsely-populated counties had rates of poverty above the state average (including Franklin, Yakima, Grant, Whatcom, and Spokane counties).

The report suggests that the full impact of the recession is not reflected in the 2008 data; they expect to see a sharp increase in the number of Washingtonians in poverty in 2009.

See the full report at: http://schmudget.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-census-poverty-data-reveal-deep.html

Submit a comment:

Colleen Chrisinger presents a paper by herself, Chris Fowler, and Rachel Garshick Kleit entitled “Identification of Shared Labor Pools for Workforce and Industrial Cluster Development.“

Man Wang present her and Rachel Garshick Kleit’s paper entitled  “Spatial Variations in U.S. Poverty: Beyond Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan.“

Bruce Katz, Mark Muro, & Jennifer Bradley. 2009. ”Miracle Mets: Our Fifty States Matter a Lot Less than Our 100 Largest Metro Areas.” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas 12: 22-35. 

The full report is available from the Brooking’s Institution: http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2009/0311_metro_katz.aspx

Submit a comment below.

The advantages offered by a cluster vary, but are usually linked to what are known as economies of agglomeration in inputs, outputs, and labor markets. Put more simply, if there are lots of firms in a region making, for example, computer processors, then firms selling raw materials to them can take advantage of a big market for their goods, and the processor manufacturers will likely have choices among raw materials suppliers giving them more power to keep prices down. In labor markets, having lots of companies depending on a similar skill set means that a regional labor pool develops with that skill set and workers can move more easily between firms. Less directly, clusters are understood to offer benefits from “knowledge spillovers” and dense networks of relationships that increase the transfer of best practices among firms. The shared labor pool and the inevitable shared social networks that result mean that companies can learn from one another more quickly than they would in isolation.

The geographic scope of economic clusters is a matter of considerable debate. While some definitions focus on geographic proximity as a defining element of cluster functions, other applications of the term see cluster benefits in attenuated value chains with global extents. In practice the geographic extent of clusters is typically defined by the region of interest of a local economic development agency, by expert opinion, by the limitations of data on industry linkages which are rarely collected at scales finer than county-level, or some combination of the above.

Economic clusters have risen to prominence as a focus of economic development efforts because of the perception that they can produce greater returns on investment in terms of jobs created and economic growth than less targeted efforts. Unfortunately, the difficulties in quantifying the relationships that define a cluster have made it difficult to pinpoint their existence, let alone assess their benefits. While there is significant anecdotal support for the efficacy of clusters as economic development engines, their generalized benefits are still hotly contested.

View other definitions.

The most commonly used federal definitions are those by the Census Bureau, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Census Bureau defines an urban area as a continuously built up territory with a total population of 2,500 or more, that is comprised of census block groups and blocks with a population density of at least 1,000 persons per square mile and surrounding blocks with an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile. All territory outside urban areas is defined as rural. This scheme is close to popular perceptions of rural and urban, or what we see from the airplane.

The OMB groups counties into metropolitan and non-metropolitan (a new micropolitian system was added in 2003) based on population size in an urbanized area and outlying counties, and commuting patterns between them. Even though the OMB explicitly states that this classification does not equate to a rural-urban classification, many researchers and policy makers use metro/non-metro interchangeably with urban/rural because county is the smallest geographic unit for which annual socioeconomic statistics are available.

The ERS of the USDA probably has the most extensive definitions of rural. Some of the popular classification schemes are the Rural-Urban Continuum Code (RUCC), the Urban Influence Code (UI), and the Rural Urban Commuting Areas (RUCA). The RUCC and UI define rural and urban along county lines, while the RUCA uses the census tract as the building block for more precise information at a finer geographical scale. These classifications define counties/census tracts by size and their degree of urbanization or proximity to metro areas.

Depending on the definition, the shares of U.S. rural population and its socioeconomic characteristics vary substantially. The need for a clear definition to produce accurate research conclusions and efficient and well-targeted government programs has encouraged researchers to create more detailed and precise definitions that go beyond the metro/non-metro dichotomy and overcome the “county trap.” Isserman’s (2005) rural-urban density typology and Waldorf’s (2006) index of relative rurality are two illustrative examples.

With so many definitions out there, which one is the “best”? The key might be a multidimensional approach, taking into account both economic activities and geographic dimensions along with population density/size that clearly delineates the boundaries between rural and urban areas, but at the same time recognizes the continuum and integration between rural and urban. Urban and rural poverty have distinct characteristics and require different policies, but they are also interlinked.

View other definitions.

Administration for Children and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/

County Business Patterns
U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/view/cbpview.html

Health Insurance Statistics
U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/hlthins.html

Income Statistics
U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income.html

National Child Care Information Center
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.nccic.org

National Institutes of Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.nih.gov/

Poverty Guidelines, Research, and Measurement
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
http://www.hud.gov

Submit a comment:

Alliance for Children and Families
http://www.alliance1.org/

Center for Family Policy and Practice
http://www.cffpp.org/

Children Now
http://www.childrennow.org/

Children’s Defense Fund
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer

Corporation for Enterprise Development
http://www.cfed.org/

Jobs for the Future
http://www.jff.org/

National Alliance to End Homelessness
http://www.endhomelessness.org/

National Center for Law and Economic Justice
New York, NY
http://www.nclej.org

National Coalition for the Homeless
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/

National Housing Conference
http://www.nhc.org

National Institute for Urban School Improvement
Education Development Center, Inc.
http://www.urbanschools.org/

Submit a comment:

Brookings Institution
http://www.brookings.edu/

Center for American Progress
http://www.americanprogress.org/

Center for Children & Families
Columbia University Teachers College
http://ccf.tc.columbia.edu

Center for Housing and Urban Development
Texas A&M University
http://chud.tamu.edu/

Center for Immigration Studies
http://www.cis.org/

Center for Law and Social Policy
http://www.clasp.org/

Center for Research on Child Wellbeing
Princeton University
http://crcw.princeton.edu

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
http://www.cbpp.org/

Chapin Hall Center for Children
University of Chicago
http://www.chapinhall.org

Child Trends
http://www.childtrends.org/

Child Welfare Research Institute
http://www.childwelfare.com/

Consortium for Policy Research in Education
http://www.cpre.org/

Economic Policy Institute
http://www.epinet.org/

Families and Work Institute
http://www.familiesandwork.org/

FedStats
http://www.fedstats.gov/

Forum on Child and Family Statistics-Childstats
http://www.childstats.gov/

The Future of Children
Princeton University
http://www.futureofchildren.org

Institute for Child and Family Policy
New York, Columbia University
http://www.childpolicy.org

Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty
United Way of Greater Los Angeles
http://www.unitedwayla.org/getinformed/rr/research/Pages/default.aspx

Institute for Urban and Minority Education
Columbia University
http://iume.tc.columbia.edu/

National Academy for State Health Policy
http://www.nashp.org

National Bureau of Economic Research
http://www.nber.org/

National Center for Children in Poverty
http://www.nccp.org

Pew Center on the States
University of Richmond
http://www.stateline.org/

PolicyLink
http://www.policylink.org/

Rural Poverty Research Institute
http://www.rupri.org/

SchoolMatters
National Education Data Partnership
http://www.schoolmatters.com

UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
University of California, Los Angeles
http://www.healthpolicy.ucla.edu/

The Urban Institute
http://www.urban.org/

World Bank Washington, D.C.
http://www.worldbank.org/

Submit a comment: