Born in Staten Island, NY, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino spent his formative tanning and toning years in Manalapan, NJ.  Last summer, he joined the cast of MTV’s The Jersey Shore.

From flashing his abs to regaling housemates with dating strategies, “The Situation” likes to put it out there, but Social Explorer can teach you even more.  For this installment of The Jersey Shore Data Hookup, we’ll use reports to help you learn what’s behind the your favorite shirtless Jersey Shore cast member.

Median household income in Manalapan, NJ, is twice the national average, but at $82,876, it would afford only a couple of appearance fees with “The Situation.”   He is reported to earn over $5 million this year for the Jersey Shore, Dancing with the Stars, product endorsements and events.

Social Explorer created one table you’d think Mike might have designed himself—“Single Males to Females Ratio By Age Group.”  And looking at the data, a young, single Manalapan man might want to move.  There are 23% more single men than single women among 20-29 year olds (7% higher than nationwide) in his old stomping ground.  Seaside Heights, NJ, has a more favorable ratio for the single guy, but Miami Beach has even more single 20-29 year old men than women (35%).  (At least he’ll have more in common with fellow Miami Beach residents, where men are five times more likely to be in arts, design, entertainment, sports and media occupations than in Manalapan.)

From Manalapan to Seaside Heights to Miami Beach, “The Situation” needs a little luck and a little data to improve his game.

In The Wall Street Journal’s “Young Women’s Pay Exceeds Male Peers’,” Conor Dougherty reports the latest findings on 20-something women.

In 2008, single, childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most U.S. cities, with incomes that were 8% greater on average, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data released Wednesday by Reach Advisors, a consumer-research firm in Slingerlands, N.Y.

In the article, Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge “I expect the trend to continue.” And he would know–it’s a trend he’s been researching for years.

In 2007, the New York Times covered the topic in “For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor,” where an examination of young women (across all marital statuses and with or without children) in big cities revealed that women were now earning more than men in the work world.

Analyzing 2005 Census estimate data, Beveridge wrote about the unique social and economic position of New York City women for GothamGazette.com, finding that:

They are much more likely to be single, earn more money, and have more education than women living in the rest of the United States. And while the same percent of New York women are working as women elsewhere in the country, the jobs they are doing are much different.

A subsequent article about 20 somethings in New York City from the 1970s to the 2000s highlighted the achievement and wage gap between men and women.  Beveridge examined the trends of women beating men in educational attainment, and making gains in salary levels too.

Men have seen their real wages fall substantially and women outside of New York have seen only very modest gain…Over this period, women in New York City saw an amazing jump in their wages compared with those of men in their age group. While women in the city earned, on average about $7,000 less than men in 1970, by 2005 they made about $5,000 more. Interestingly, women in the country as a whole have closed the gap between their earning and those of men, but still lag behind.

Social Explorer helps you understand the trends of today with decades of data and context.

Social Explorer has started tweeting!  Click here to follow us for all the demographic action on our blog and Facebook Page.

In the New York Times article “Racial Patterns Are Found in Recent School Budget Elections,” Sam Roberts explores the connections between race and age patterns and school budget decisions.  He found that:

Budgets tended to fare worse in districts with a large number of white voters and a large number of nonwhite students. And in the four districts in the state where the majority of registered voters are white and nonwhite students make up the majority of the school population, the budgets were defeated.

After analyzing the budget vote results for the NYT, Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge explained that:

In New York, it appears that white voters in districts with large numbers of minorities, and minority voters themselves, often voted against school spending increases…This very well might undercut educational opportunities for such minorities, while depressing property values in districts with a substantial share of minorities. It may increase the statewide gap between blacks and whites in both school performance and wealth.

Click here to read the whole article.

Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge appeared on WNYC’s the Brian Lehrer Show for the wrap up of the show’s Census series.

You can listen to the entire segment here or on the show page.  (Beveridge joins the conversation at minute 30.)

The Brian Lehrer Show has been using Social Explorer maps to engage WNYC listeners in their Anecdotal Census project.  Check out all of their census coverage here.

Muslims and mosques are much in the news with the current controversy over a proposed mosque near the World Trade Center site, as well as protests against mosques around the nation.

With all this attention on them, who are American Muslims?  Counting congregations and adherents can be difficult.  The US Census Bureau doesn’t track religion data–in fact, unlike in other countries, it is barred from asking.  Social Explorer gives you access to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) data from 1980 to 2000.  Based on the Religious Congregations and Membership Study (RCMS), this is the most complete census available on religion in the United States.

According to the 2000 ARDA survey, New York City had 86 Muslim congregations and 167,259 adherents.  Nationwide, there were 1,209 congregations and 1,559,294 adherents.  You can explore where Muslims are in the New York City area and around the nation on this map.

Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge wrote about the process of counting Muslims and other religious groups for GothamGazette.com.

Since Muslims, whatever their number, are a small part of the United States population they are hard to count. They are also hard to define. Considering just adults, what does one need to do to be counted as a Muslim? Go to a mosque? Pray several times per day? Observe Ramadan? Have made a pilgrimage to Mecca? Eat Halal foods? Those trying to count Jews face similar problems. One definition of Jewish, for instance, is “Feeling you should go to High Holiday services.” By such a definition apparently, it is enough to either go to the services or to feel guilty about not going.

In this article, he also parses the different methods (and problems with them) used by researchers to count Muslims.  Click here to read the entire article.

A recent court ruling struck down Proposition 8, and now gays and lesbians can legally marry.  How many people might this affect?  Social Explorer can help you find out.

Since 2000, the Census has counted the number of unmarried partners, including same-sex unmarried partners, which can be an indicator of the number of people who might take the opportunity to get hitched in light of the recent court decision.

In 2000, 594,391 residents of the US identified as being in same-sex unmarried couples.  That number increased to 700,266–one in seven of which live in California, according to the 2006-08 American Community Survey.

Click the map to explore where unmarried same-sex partners live in California and around the nation.

Italy’s La Repubblica Television recently interviewed Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge about demographic changes in Harlem.  We hope that our Italian fans and admirers will enjoy this news story:

Born in Chile, adopted at six months and raised in upstate New York by Italian parents, Snooki bloomed at the Jersey Shore last summer and is now taking over South Beach in season two of MTV’s The Jersey Shore.

From the top of her pouf to the bottom of her tanned toes, we know a lot about Nicole Polizzi, AKA Snooki, Snickas, Snooks, Snickers and the Princess of Poughkeepsie.  (Even Obama knows about her by now.)

The Washington Post describes her fame, “After the media storm of ‘Jersey Shore’s’ initial season, Snooki has every reason to believe the world revolves around her, which it very well may.”

Social Explorer lets you learn even more about this icon and her world.

For this installment of The Jersey Shore Data Hookup, we’ll use Social Explorer to find out all about her hometown of Marlboro, NY, (population 3,874) through an interactive map.

This map uses one of Social Explorer’s new color schemes called “Pink Panther”–ideal for fashionable mapmakers.

You can also create reports to find out more about where she grew up, such as:

-Just how Italian is Marlboro?  31.1% (nearly seven times the rate nationwide)

-And, how many other Chileans live nearby? 70 in Ulster County (total population 177,749)

Click on the map (or the pouf) to explore more.

Vampires are booming thanks to Twilight’s book sales, movie tickets and fainting fans.  With Social Explorer you can learn where they might be booming in the US too.

Count von Count wanted us to count up his vampire peers.

Of course, there is no “are you a vampire?” question on the census form, but using Social Explorer’s reports tools, you can examine the Romanian population—those hailing from the land of the legendary Transylvania, which is purportedly the land of Vampires.  (Of course being Romanian does not make one a vampire, who after all are mythical.  Besides, once bitten, one from any ancestry or origin can become a vampire.)

Vampire buzz is on the rise, and Social Explorer can (almost) let you work with vampiric datasets.

In 2000, the remote city of Forks, Washington (Clallam County), where the Twilight saga takes place, had eight residents who were born in Romania, and 29 who identified as having Romanian ancestry.

Because Clallam County has a small population, we won’t have the exact numbers on the Romanian  increase until the 2010 Census data are released, but using the American Community Survey estimates for 2006-2008, we can look at trends in Washington State to examine the population shifts.

Back in the 1920s (Nosferatu’s heyday), there were 102,803 US residents born in Romania. That number has grown to 164,294, according to the 2006-08 ACS.

As the Twilight books rose up the bestseller list, the Washington Romanian population grew too.  Between 2000 and 2008, the Romanian population in Washington State increased from 4,345 to 7,339, and the number of residents with Romanian ancestry increased from 9,964 to 17,041.

Click here to create Social Explorer reports about potential vampires, werewolves (purportedly  to have originated in Germany) and other notable populations.