Employment and Income Data

The Urban Institute's MetroTrends research team has created an interactive map that reveals the relative employment strength in 16 job sectors for the nation’s top 100 metropolitan areas. A brief commentary by Graham MacDonald accompanies the map.

The recession has increased joblessness among older Americans. These graphs and tables report unemployment rates and how they have varied by age, sex, race, and education since 2007.

This document describes the Business Patterns series source data set and the summary indicators from this set that are included in the UI data file. It also discusses technical issues associated with preparing the Business Patterns data.

NeighborhoodInfo DC, an Urban Institute project, has amassed a data warehouse measuring the health and vitality of Washington, DC neighborhoods. This fact sheet is the first publication in our effort to extend our analysis to the council districts in Prince George's County, Maryland. The following information summarizes selected population and socioeconomic changes in Prince George's County between 2000 and 2010 using the latest tract-level 2010 U.S. Census population data and the 2005–2009 American Community Survey. We provide countywide averages, as well as the individual changes in the county’s nine districts.

While much has been written about the decline of central cities, very little research has examined the problem in their suburbs. This report focuses on the suburbs of older industrial cities and how best to address the challenges they face. Using census data, literature review, and four in-depth case studies, the authors provide a detailed portrait of the underlying forces shaping distressed suburbs. It highlights a range of best practices used in case study cities for fostering growth and reducing poverty. These lessons can be instructive both to local leaders working to turn their cities around and to the federal policy makers supporting them.

This issue brief examines the unprecedented funding problem of state unemployment insurance (UI) programs. The majority of UI programs (36 of 53) have borrowed, securing record loan amounts to maintain unemployment insurance benefit payments during 2009-2011. It identifies the causes of the funding problem, discusses borrowing options for states and describes policy responses at both the state and federal levels. State actions have included both tax increases and benefit reductions. Federal policy proposals have addressed the low UI taxable wage base in most states and have offered partial debt forgiveness in return for state actions to improve solvency. To date, policy actions have been slow at both the state and federal levels of government.

Public concern about blighted properties has swelled in New Orleans, and residents are rightfully concerned. Although blight has declined substantially since 2008 thanks to billions of federal housing dollars, as of 2010, New Orleans still had 43,755 blighted homes or empty lots. This report includes a review of economic and housing trends that are affecting blight, a broad set of principles to help guide various efforts to eliminate blight in New Orleans, and an analysis of neighborhood housing markets. Finally, this report provides recommendations for maximizing the potential of available resources for eliminating blight, including how neighborhood organizations can supplement public efforts.

The aging of the baby boomers represents a demographic tidal wave that will profoundly affect housing needs and living arrangements in the coming years. The authors examine three possible scenarios for the projected number and mix of households in New Orleans in 2020. But regardless of the scenario, the increase in households headed by elderly will greatly surpass the increase in any other household type. This report concludes with strategies for attracting new residents to the city and ensuring we meet the housing needs of aging residents, including the desire of many seniors to stay in their homes as long as possible.