NCES Announces DataLab
From e-mail:
DataLab, a new website from the Institute of Education Sciences’ National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), puts a wide range of survey data collected by NCES at your fingertips. Whether you want a quick number or an in-depth look at education data, the tools in the DataLab are designed to do both.

QuickStats, available now, is a guided table generator that allows users to produce a table with ease. Designed for those who are new to NCES data, or those who wish to answer basic questions — what percent of college students are from low-income families? what percent of adults are taking coursework outside of the traditional college setting? what are the teaching challenges most often cited by public school teachers? — QuickStats provides easy access to frequently used variables in many NCES studies of students, teachers, schools, and postsecondary institutions.

PowerStats, available in the spring of 2009, will permit users to produce complex tables and to run regressions, and to draw upon thousands of variables from many NCES studies. Like its predecessor the NCES DAS, Powerstats will allow for many kinds of regression analyses, including weighted least squares and logistic regression.

To view the site, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/datalab/

Source: IES Newsflash

One-in-Five Speak Spanish In Four States — New Census Bureau Data Show How America Lives

At least one-in-five residents of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas spoke Spanish at home in 2007, according to new American Community Survey data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Nationwide, an estimated 35 million, or about 12.3 percent, hablan español at home.

The annual release of American Community Survey data about the social, economic and housing characteristics of the nation’s population also show state rankings on topics such as which state had the highest household size (Utah), and which had the highest percentage of college graduates (District of Columbia and Massachusetts).

+ Detailed tables
+ MSA ranking tables (xls)
+ ACS Media Tool Kit
Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Home Price Comparison Index

The 2008 Home Price Comparison Index compiled by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC allows you to quickly approximate how much your home might cost in any of the participating 340 markets across North America.

Source: Coldwell Banker

Direct to report (PDF, 6 pages).

Source: Harris Interactive

From the site:

Judicial Facts and Figures is a set of tables containing historical caseload data primarily for the fiscal years from 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2002 through 2007. The tables include data on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the U.S. District Courts, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts. All tables are in PDF.

Source: U.S. Courts

Direct to Download Materials

The Population Reference Bureau’s 2008 World Population Data Sheet and its summary report offer detailed information about country, regional, and global population patterns.

Source: Population Reference Bureau

From the National Science Foundation:
Science and Engineering State Profiles: 2005-07
Material in XLS and PDF formats.

Source: NSF

La Paz, Ariz., Population is Nation’s Oldest County

La Paz County, Ariz. — located on the California border and home to the Colorado River Indian Reservation — has the country’s oldest population, according to U.S. Census Bureau county population estimates by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin released today. Webb County (Laredo), Texas — on the Mexican border in the southern part of the state — has the country’s youngest population, with children younger than 5 comprising 12.8 percent.

La Paz — with 32 percent of its population 65 or older on July 1, 2007 — led 24 counties with at least one-quarter of their populations 65 or older. Nine of these counties were in Florida, with four in Texas and three in Michigan.

Meanwhile, 302 counties, or nearly one in every 10, are “majority-minority” — meaning the county had a population with more than 50 percent minority residents.

Among the majority-minority counties with a minority population of 1 million or more were Bronx, N.Y.; Miami-Dade, Fla.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Queens, N.Y.; Bexar (San Antonio) and Dallas, Texas; San Bernardino, Calif.; Kings (Brooklyn), N.Y.; Harris (Houston), Texas; Santa Clara (San Jose) and Riverside, Calif.; Cook (Chicago), Ill.; and Orange, Calif.

Los Angeles County had the largest minority population in the country in 2007. At 7 million, or 71 percent of its total, Los Angeles County was home to one in every 14 of the nation’s minority residents. The county’s minority population was higher than the total population of all but 12 states.

Maricopa County, Ariz., gained 79,000 minority residents between 2006 and 2007, to lead the nation. Maricopa (Phoenix is its largest city) now has a minority population of 1.6 million, comprising 41 percent of its total. Its minority population ranks seventh nationally.

Based on total population, Starr County in south Texas had the highest proportion of minorities of all counties, at 98 percent. All but two of the top 10 counties in this category were along or near the Mexican border.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Two new reports!

++ State Transportation Statistics 2007

This report presents a statistical profile of transportation in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

++ Transportation Statistics Annual Report 2007

This report presents selected transportation data on 13 topics specified in the legislative mandate of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Source: BTS

From the article:

The Queens Library issued a news release on Friday morning boasting that, yet again, it had the highest circulation last year of any public library system in the United States.

The Public Library Data Service Statistical Report, issued by the American Library Association, found that the Queens Library loaned 21,033,861 items in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2007. The Multnomah County Public Library in Oregon, which includes Portland, was No. 2, with 19,589,530 loans.

The Queens Library system has been No. 1 in the national ranking many times before — including last year — so this latest news was no surprise.

Source: NY Times

The full text of the Foundation Yearbook is a fee-based document but highlights are available here at no charge. (PDF)

The edition’s key findings include:
* Overall foundation giving rose 10 percent in 2007 to an estimated $42.9 billion
* Giving by the nation’s more than 72,000 grantmaking foundations increased 7.1 percent in 2006 to $39 billion
* Assets of all active U.S. foundations were up 11.6 percent to a record $614.7 billion in 2006
* The West posted the fastest rate of growth in number of foundations, total giving, and assets in 2006

Source: Foundation Center

Disability and Health in the United States, 2001-2005
89 pages; PDF.

Nearly 30% of adults have problems performing basic actions…

Source: NCHS

LC’s FRD Updates Nigeria Country Profile

23 pages; PDF.

Source: LC FRD

National Transportation Statistics 2008 - Second Quarter Update

This report presents basic information on America’s transportation system.

Source: BTS

Resource of the Week: More Niche Statistics
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Judging by the e-mail we got and the number of links-to-us, last week’s collection of niche statistics was somewhat of a hit. Well, there are plenty more in our ever-growing collection. So here is another handful of fishing holes for interesting numbers.

+ ATA Airline Cost Index

ATA produces the Airline Cost Index to monitor trends in the cost of inputs (e.g., labor, fuel, food, aircraft ownership, airport landing fees, insurance, utilities, interest) to the provision of air service over time. The various indices also facilitate comparisons among the components themselves and between airline costs and broader economic indicators. Long-term cost trends are important determinants of airfares.

The airline industry is perpetually in the news. See why.

+ National Transportation Safety Board: Aviation Accident Statistics
The official U.S. government source of data concerning aviation accidents, fatalities, injuries, etc. Regularly updated. One particularly intriguing table: Air Carrier Occurrences Involving Illegal Acts
(Sabotage, Suicide, or Terrorism), 1988 through 2007.

+ Port Industry Statistics
Brought to you by the American Association of Port Authorities, this collection includes data in PDF or xls format concerning:

• Port Security Fees
• World Port Rankings - 2006*
• World Seaborne Trade - 1975-2006*
• North American Port Container Traffic - 2007 **
• 2006 U.S. Port Cargo Tonnage Rankings*
• 2003 U.S. Port Rankings By Cargo Value*
• Port of Mexico - Container Traffic (1990-2006)*
• U.S. / Canada Container Traffic in TEUs (1990 - 2007)*
• Container Handling Ports of Central and South America (1997-2006) **

Other fishing holes for port/shipping statistics include:

• Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
• U.S Maritime Administration: Data & Statistics

+ Regional Economic Conditions (RECON) (FDIC)

Regional Economic Conditions (RECON) was originally designed to assist the FDIC in the examination process by providing economic information at the state, MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area), and county levels. It is helpful in the analysis of risks facing financial institutions. We believe that easy access to timely, high-quality information about economic conditions and risks could be of benefit to some banks, as well as the general public.

Using RECON, anyone with internet access is able to drill down to any state, MSA, or county to view standard graphs, tables, and maps depicting economic conditions and how they have changed over time.

RECON contains a ’shopping cart’ feature that allows the user to assemble charts and tables of interest and then print them together at the end of their session.

Economic data is arranged by geography. Start by choosing a state from the dropdown menu on the left-hand side of the screen.

We like this one because it allows us to access county- and MSA-level economic performance data that is updated regularly. Your tax dollars at work.

+ Transportation Construction Employment Report
This monthly report, from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, is its own little economic indicator. It provides detailed information on highway, street, bridge and tunnel contractor employment, including trends.

+ WebCASPAR: Integrated Science and Engineering Resources Data System

The WebCASPAR database provides easy access to a large body of statistical data resources for science and engineering (S&E) at U.S. academic institutions. WebCASPAR emphasizes S&E, but its data resources also provide information on non-S&E fields and higher education in general.

This National Science Foundation resource includes a wide range of statistics on such things as earned doctorates, federal research funding, R&D expenditures at institutions of higher learning, research facilities, and more.