Sunday, September 9th is National Grandparents Day.  First declared a holiday by President Carter in 1978, the occasion celebrates grandparents’ contributions to family life and society.  Using Social Explorer, we can look at the number of grandparents in the US, and their relationships with their grandchildren.  Census and American Community Survey data show the role of grandparents over the past decade.

In 2000, 5,771,671 grandparents lived with their own grandchildren (under 18 years old).  That is 3.6 percent of all adults.

Tim Tebow in New York by artist Janet Hamlin (Newsday)

On this Passover and Easter weekend, football enthusiasts may be celebrating another holiday–the arrival of Tim Tebow.  In her Newsday op-ed “Tim Tebow in the secular city,” Hofstra religion Professor Julie Byrne explains that prayerful Tebow might fit right into his new town.

Tebow and the Jets — how’s that going to fly?

When it became public that Denver Broncos quarterback and Christian poster boy Tim Tebow was coming to New York, that was the big question.

How will it fly for a transplant from the conservative Christian heartland to play for a team in the world center of religious pluralism? For someone who doesn’t take the Lord’s name in vain to work for famous cusser Rex Ryan? For someone who abstains from sex before marriage to hang with randy Jets teammates?

It will fly just fine.

In addition to not being the first publicly religious sports star, Tim Tebow is moving to a city that is actually more religious than many would think, as Byrne explains using Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge’s analysis:

While New York has a reputation for godlessness, both city and state actually have higher rates of membership in organized religion than the country as a whole. In 2000, the proportion of state residents who belonged to some religious body was 76 percent — compared with 61 percent in the United States as a whole — according to an analysis by Queens College sociologist Andrew Beveridge. Even higher numbers specifically for the tristate region put it in the top 9 percent of urban areas in terms of religiosity, ahead of Salt Lake City and Little Rock.

Explore the religion demography yourself using Social Explorer’s maps and reports of InfoGroup – American Church Lists data.

While Irish eyes are smiling on St. Patrick’s Day, many Finns are already celebrating St. Urho’s Day.  The holiday was first celebrated in Minnesota on March 16th, which happens to be just before St. Patrick’s Day.

It honors the legendary Urho, the patron saint of vineyard workers.  As the story goes, he saved the grape crop from a grasshopper infestation with his horrible breath as he yelled, “Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen!”  (Grasshopper, grasshopper, go away!)

Social Explorer has data throughout the years on a multitude of ancestries, including the Finnish.

• Soon after the first St. Urho’s Day was celebrated, the 1960 census reported that there were 240,827 people in the US born in Finland, representing 0.1 percent of the total population.
• Over 15 percent of them resided in Minnesota, where St. Urho celebrations first originated.
• According to the 2010 American Community Survey, there are now 647,697 residents of Finnish ancestry, making up about 0.2 percent of the total population.

Some St. Urho’s Day revelers dress up as grasshoppers and grapes to celebrate.  Social Explorer makes its data festive with purples and greens in the map below.  As you can see, Finns are especially concentrated in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Explore the map to see where you should plan your next St. Urho’s Day outing, or if you are a grasshopper, where to avoid.

Map of Finnish Residents in the US (2006-10 Census)

Users please sign in for full access to maps and data.

Happy St. Urho’s Day!

Ever since his workshop signed up for a subscription, Santa has been a fan of Social Explorer.  This very moment, he’s making his map…checking it twice.

With the latest Census data, he can figure out how many occupied homes there are in the US (116,716,292 units) and where they’re located.

Occupied Homes Along Santa’s Route (2010 Census)

As he plans out his presents, Santa will surely want to know where children live.  With just a few clicks (and without stirring a single mouse), he can map where the nation’s 40,550,019 kids under 10 years old live.

Priority Present Recipients (Children Under 10, Census 2010)

In the coming months, he’ll be able to upload his own naughty/nice dataset.  We’ll tell you more about that in the new year.

Happy holidays from Social Explorer!

As we approach Halloween, ghosts and trick or treaters alike might wonder where the most ghoulish celebrations will be.

Social Explorer’s tools allow them to examine data on religious cults and sects.  With data from the 2009 Religious Data Survey (from the Association of Religion Data Archives), users can research where cult and sect members worship and plan their haunting and candy routes accordingly.

According to the data, there are 25 such congregations in the US, reporting 7,637 members.  Which states might peddle in the most pagan rituals?   The following states have sect and/or cult congregations:

• California
• Florida
• Hawaii
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Missouri
• North Carolina
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Texas
• Washington

To explore detailed religion data elsewhere in the country and at the county level, visit Social Explorer’s maps and reports tools.

Happy Dataween!

With the Occupy Wall Street protest bringing attention to “the other 99 percent,” the spotlight has also turned to the wealthiest Americans.  In the New York Times article “As the Data Show, There’s a Reason the Wall Street Protesters Chose New York,” Sam Roberts explains that “the megarich hold more of the nation’s wealth and collect more of the overall income today than at any time since right before the Great Depression.”  He cites Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge:

Certainly, the protesters picked the right city in which to start their campaign. Among the 1 percent of American households with the highest income, a significant portion, 13 percent, live in the New York metropolitan area, with 4.4 percent living in Manhattan, according to an analysis by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College. In three Manhattan neighborhoods, the Upper East and Upper West Sides and Greenwich Village, more than 11 percent of the households make enough to qualify for the top 1 percent.

The related article “Top Earners Doubled Share of Nation’s Income, Study Finds,” details findings by the Congressional Budget Office about gains made by the country’s top earners.

Social Explorer tools and resources allow for further examination of the most affluent Americans.  From unpublished detailed American Community Survey (ACS) data for the years 2005-2009 (not yet available in Social Explorer), the top 1 percent of households earned at least $394,600, compared to no more  $12,282 for the bottom 10 percent or no more than $132,836 for the bottom 90%.  (These figures are adjusted to 2010 dollars.)

With the current state of the economy, it is likely that the latest data will show a decline in these numbers.  Still, the super-affluent are much, much richer than the quite well off.

The published tables in the ACS provide detailed annual data on income for the top 5 percent of earners.  Using the ACS data already available in Social Explorer, we examined this elite population in the US, New York City, Manhattan and Washington, DC.  (All income figures adjusted to 2010 dollars.)

The census recently started blocking certain detailed data on the income threshold for top income earner when that threshold was more than $250,001.  However, we can still look at the mean income of this group both before and after the recession.

A graph of this data shows the strong earning power in the borough of Manhattan, as well as the impact of the recession.  Nationwide, mean income for the top five percent remained relatively stable, while in Manhattan it experienced bigger ups and downs.

Mean Income for Top 5 Percent of Earners

Using Social Explorer’s maps, users can also see where high earners live.

Manhattan Map of Households Earning Over $200,000 per year (2005-09 American Community Survey)

Click around the map to learn more about high earners in New York City and across the country.

For more on the bottom of the 99 percent, read the recent New York Times articles on the nation’s poorest community and the county that suffered the most since the recession (both cited Social Explorer data and analysis).

New Hampshire may move its primary to December from January to get ahead of other states.  As the presidential election seasons begins to go into high gear, commentators once again note how unrepresentative the early states are, especially New Hampshire and Iowa.

Because New Hampshire has an open primary—allowing people from all party affiliations to vote—the demographics of the state more closely represent the demographics of potential voters.  Various commentators have speculated on how the demographics might influence the outcome of the primary.

Social Explorer took a look at 2010 census data to see just how the granite state compares with the rest of the US.

With 1,316,470 residents, New Hampshire represents 0.43 percent of the entire US population.  By comparison, California represents 12.07 percent of the country.  It would take more than 28 New Hampshires to equal California in population.

New Hampshire residents are a few years older than most of the country, with a median age of 41.1 years (higher than the national median of 37.1 years).

New Hampshire’s population is whiter than the rest of the nation—93.9 percent white versus 72.4 percent white.  The state also has many fewer black and Hispanic residents—1.1 percent black compared to 12.6 percent nationwide, and 2.8 percent Hispanic compared to 16.4 percent.

Of course the primary would be a boon to New Hampshire’s hotel and hospitality industry.  According to the 2010 American Community Survey, the arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation and food services sector employs 55,368 New Hampshire residents (8.1 percent of the employed population).

Social Explorer’s 2010 American Community Survey data helps us learn more about the state’s population.  Educational attainment in New Hampshire is higher than the rest of the nation, with fewer residents not having high school degrees (8.5 percent compared to 14.4 percent), and more people with bachelors and masters degrees.  Also, the high school drop out rate is lower in New Hampshire than the rest of the US—3.1 percent compared to 5.6 percent.

Unemployment is higher nationwide (10.8 percent) than in New Hampshire (7.8 percent), but New Hampshire may have experienced a bigger drop, more than doubling the unemployment between 2000 and 2010 (3.8 percent to 7.8 percent, while the nationwide rate increased from 5.8 percent to 10.8 percent).

Economically, the state is better off than the rest of the nation.  Median income is 22 percent higher in New Hampshire than nationwide ($61,042 compared to $50,046).  And, because New Hampshire has no income tax, residents get to keep more of their pay.  Also, the poverty rate in New Hampshire is less than half the rate nationwide (5.3 percent compared to 11.3 percent).

Looking at health coverage, nationwide 15.5 percent of residents do not have any kind of health coverage, while 11.1 percent of New Hampshire residents lack coverage.

Religion has already been a hot topic in the presidential race, and Social Explorer’s data from the Association of Religion Data Archives (2009) lets users explore more dimensions of demography not available from the Census Bureau.

One in four New Hampshire residents belongs to a congregation, which is less than the nationwide rate of one in three.  Comparing religious groups around the country, the US has more Evangelical and Mainline Protestants than New Hampshire, while New Hampshire has more Roman Catholics than the US.

As for much-discussed Mormons, New Hampshire has 15 of the nation’s 6,632 Mormon congregations.  Though Mormonism is more prevalent nationwide than in New Hampshire, less than 1 percent of the US population belongs to a Mormon congregation.  (Meanwhile, in Utah 14.3 percent of the population belongs to a Mormon congregation.)

Overall, the data show that New Hampshire is (to varying degrees) older, whiter, more affluent, better educated, more likely to have health coverage and less religious than the rest of the country.  We will find out the impact of these demographics on the presidential election as early as December.

With the new school year approaching, Social Explorer is taking a closer look at education data today and over the years.  In this installment, we are looking at the rise of high school and college education through the decades.

Some of the earliest detailed census data on education came from 1850 when the census reported information about school attendance.  For many decades, the census focused on literacy rates, which we discussed in part two of the back to school series.

By the mid-1900s, data on educational attainment emerged (elementary school, high school, college, etc.), adding new insight into education levels across the nation and between population groups.  Using the 1940 and 1970 censuses and the 2009 American Community Survey, Social Explorer investigated these changes in detail.

Educational attainment, as measured by earning degrees, increased nearly one and a half times over between 1940 and 2009 at both the high school and college levels.  The trends in the data also show that college degrees today are even more prevalent than high school degrees were in the 1940s.

Comparing genders, women have had consistently higher numbers in attaining high school degrees, while men earn more college degrees.

However, by 2009, the differences in attainment between the two genders became quite small, with men catching up to women in high school degrees and women catching up to men in college degrees.  The following tables examine this growth:

Education levels have been rising across the board, but in recent years, the number of young women attending college has increased markedly.  As of 2009, 9,219,928 women were enrolled in college, which outnumbers the 7,234,021 men enrolled.  This influx of women attending college has propelled the growth in the overall number of adult women with college degrees.

We hope you enjoyed parts one, two and three of our back to school series.  Please visit Social Explorer’s maps and reports sections to learn more about education and other data.

With the new school year approaching, Social Explorer is taking a closer look at education data today and over the years.

The most recent available data (from the 2009 American Community Survey) reveal education levels and distinctions among groups, as well as the correlations between educational attainment, income and employment.

Lesson 1: Education helps with employment.

Civilian Employment Rate by Educational Attainment (25 to 64 years old)

It’s a tough job market out there for everyone, but especially for those with less education.  Finishing high school cuts a graduate’s potential unemployment rate by more than one third.  Earning a bachelor’s degree lowers unemployment to 4.5 percent.  (Getting too many graduate degrees may or may not help your employment prospects, of course.)

Lesson 2: Educational attainment and earnings differ by gender.

Educational Attainment by Gender (25 years old and above)

Looking at gender, men are outpacing women in education at every level except for some college or associates degrees.  However, trends in enrollment may shift this dynamic, which Social Explorer will examine in a future post on education over the decades.

Lesson 3: It pays to be a man.

Annual Earnings By Sex By Educational Attainment (25 years old and above)

Across all education levels, income disparities exist between men and women.  As the data show, this gap grows wider with more education in terms of dollars, but stays around the same percentage (approximately 42 percent higher for men).  (Certain factors may influence this trend, such as time taken off for child-rearing.)

Lesson 4: Education levels vary by race and ethnicity.

Educational Attainment by Race and Ethnicity (25 years old and above)

Data on adult educational attainment also reveals differences between different groups.  For instance, Asians earn the most bachelors, graduate and professional degrees, but are average for the number of high school dropouts.  Meanwhile Hispanics and Native Americans/Alaska Natives  are the most likely to have not graduated from high school.

For more information about different graduate degrees obtained, and detailed data on educational attainment by race and gender, check out Social Explorer’s reports.

We hope you enjoyed part one of our back to school series.  Check back soon for parts two and three.  We promise there won’t be a quiz, but data just might help you succeed in school.