Tag Archives: Visualizations

Following are visualizations of data. Many are interactive and created using Tableau Public. In some cases I’ve recorded myself using the visualization to tell a story, and all you have to do is watch.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

An interactive presentation of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for the states, grouped by race/ethnicity, and then by lunch status.

The U.S. Department of Education, through the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), conducts the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) every other year. Known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” it is “the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas.” 1

NAEP is useful because the test is created and administered independently of the states: “Since NAEP assessments are administered uniformly using the same sets of test booklets across the nation, NAEP results serve as a common metric for all states and selected urban districts.”2 This is important because studies have shown that states vary widely in the rigor of the tests they create themselves: “The key finding is that the variation among state achievement standards continues to be wide.” 3

The NAEP tests are administered at several grade levels and for a variety of subjects, but the primary focus is on math and reading, at grades four and eight. I’ve gathered test scores from NCES several test years, for these two subjects and two grade levels, with the results available by race/ethnicity in one visualization, and by lunch eligibility in another. Eligibility for the school lunch program is used as a proxy for household income, with “eligible” meaning the student is from a low-income household.

I gathered the data using the NAEP Data Explorer available at NCES 4 and used Tableau Public to present the data. The data includes the scale score for each state, grade, and subject, along with the percentage of students scoring “Below Basic,” “At or above basic,” “At or above proficient,” and “At Advanced.”

For the visualization based on race/ethnicity, click here.

For the visualization based on school lunch status, click here.

Example visualization. Click for larger.
Example visualization. Click for larger.

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Notes

  1. National Assessment of Educational Progress. About. Available at nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/. ↩
  2. ibid. ↩
  3. National Center for Education Statistics. About the NAEP State Mapping Analyses. Available at nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/statemapping/about.aspx. ↩
  4. Available at https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ndecore/landing. ↩

Tax collections by the states

An interactive visualization of tax collections by state governments.

Each year the United States Census Bureau collects data from the states regarding tax collections in various categories. I present this data in an interactive visualization.

The values are for tax collections by the state only, not local governmental entities like cities, counties, townships, improvement districts, cemetery districts, library districts, drainage districts, watershed districts, and school districts.

Of particular interest is the “Total by State” tab. Here you can select a number of states and compare their tax burdens. (Probably three or four states at a time is the practical limit.) This data is presented on a per-person basis.

Data is as collected from the United States Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections, and not adjusted for inflation. Visualization created using Tableau Public.

Click here to access the visualization.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.
Economics

Employment in metropolitan areas

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An interactive visualization of labor force, employment, and unemployment rate for all metropolitan areas in the United States.

The example from the visualization shown below shows the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area and All Metro Areas. Data is through January 2018. Of note regarding Wichita:

  • Since the Great Recession ended, the unemployment rate in Wichita has fallen, as it has nationwide.
  • At the same time, employment (the number of people working) in Wichita, has been steady or rising slightly. Nationwide, employment has been growing.
  • At the same time, the civilian labor force in Wichita has been mostly falling, while rising nationwide.

When using the visualization you can adjust the date range to focus on recent years, or any other time period.

To learn about the data included and to use the visualization, click on Civilian labor force and unemployment by metropolitan area.

Example from the visualization., showing Wichita and All metro areas Click for larger.
Economics

Employment in the states

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An interactive visualization of the civilian labor force, employment, and unemployment, for each state.

In the example from the visualization shown below, which shows indexed employment growth, you can see that Kansas (the highlighted line) is not faring well. There aren’t many states whose lines are below that of Kansas.

This data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division of the United States Department of Labor. It is current through January 2018.

Click here to use the visualization and to learn about the meaning of the data series. There are four views of the data, accessible through the tabs along the top. You may select a time frame and any combination of states. By clicking on the color legend, you can emphasize the lines for one or more states. (Ctrl+click to add more than one line.)

Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population, example showing Kansas highlighted. Click for larger.

Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population

An interactive visualization of the civilian labor force, employment, and unemployment, for each state.

Source of data is Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division of the United States Department of Labor. The title of the data series is States and selected areas: Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population, January 1976 to date, seasonally adjusted (TXT). This may be found on the BLS page State Employment and Unemployment (Monthly), specifically the file https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/ststdsadata.txt.

BLS offers these definitions of the data elements in this visualization: 1

  • Civilian labor force. Included are all persons in the civilian noninstitutional population ages 16 and older classified as either employed or unemployed. (See the definitions below.)
  • Employed persons. These are all persons who, during the reference week (the week including the 12th day of the month), (a) did any work as paid employees, worked in their own business or profession or on their own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of their family, or (b) were not working but who had jobs from which they were temporarily absent because of vacation, illness, bad weather, childcare problems, maternity or paternity leave, labor-management dispute, job training, or other family or personal reasons, whether or not they were paid for the time off or were seeking other jobs. Each employed person is counted only once, even if he or she holds more than one job.
  • Unemployed persons. Included are all persons who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment some time during the 4 week-period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.
  • Unemployment rate. The unemployed percent of the civilian labor force [i.e., 100 times (unemployed/civilian labor force)].

Click here to use the visualization. There are four views of the data, accessible through the tabs along the top. You may select a time frame and any combination of states. By clicking on the color legend, you can emphasize the lines for one or more states. (Ctrl+click to add more than one line.)

Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population, example. Click for larger.
Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population, example showing Kansas highlighted. Click for larger.

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Notes

  1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Frequently Asked Questions. Available at https://www.bls.gov/lau/laufaq.htm#Q03. ↩
Wichita city government

Wichita check register

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Wichita spending data presented as a summary, and as a list.

As part of an ongoing transparency project, I asked the City of Wichita for check register data. I’ve made the data available in a visualization using Tableau Public. Click here to access the visualization. To access a simple list of the data, click here.

Analyzing this data requires a bit of local knowledge. For example, there is a vendor named “Visit Wichita” that started to receive monthly payments in March 2015. What about payments for January and February? Those were made to a vendor named “Go Wichita,” which changed its name to “Visit Wichita.”

Similarly, there are payments made to both “Westar Energy” and “Westar Energy — EDI.” These are the same entities, just as “Visit Wichita” and “Go Wichita” are the same entity. To the city’s credit, the matching pairs have the same vendor number, which is good. But resolving this requires a different level of analysis.

Of note, it looks like there were 2,605 checks issued in amounts $20 or less over a period of nearly three years. Bank of America has estimated that the total cost of sending a business check ranges from $4 to $20.

It is by now routine for governmental agencies to post spending data like this, but not at the City of Wichita. Upon inquiry, city officials told me that the present financial management system “does not include many modern system features such as an ‘open checkbook.’” An “open checkbook” refers to a modern web interface where citizens can query for specific data and perhaps perform other analysis. An example is Denver’s open checkbook.

We’ve been promised a modern system for many years.

While the next-generation Wichita financial system will probably have such a feature, there’s no reason why citizens can’t experience some of the benefits now. The spreadsheet of spending data could easily be posted on the city’s website on a monthly basis. People like myself will take that data and make it more useful, as I did. The city has demonstrated that it is able to post documents to its website, so there is no reason why this should not be happening.

Kansas state government

Kansas tax receipts

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News about Kansas tax receipts for November 2017, along with an interactive visualization.

Following is a press release from the Kansas Department of Revenue regarding November 2017 tax receipts. For an interactive visualization of this data, see Visualization: Kansas tax receipts.

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December 1, 2017
Tax receipts show promise of improved economy

TOPEKA–The state has collected $258.75 million over last fiscal year at this time, totaling over 11 percent growth in collections according to data from the latest revenue report released Friday.

So far this fiscal year that started in July, the state has collected $1.09 billion in total individual income tax, which amounts to $176.74 million over last year. In the same time, sales tax collections total $985.71 million, putting it $41.64 million over last year or over 4 percent growth. Corporate income tax continues the multi month trend of outperforming the previous year, hitting a value of $30.51 million over last year’s cumulative collections.

“Sales tax receipts have reached what appears to be stable growth above last year’s collections,” Revenue Secretary Sam Williams said. “Individual income tax collections are also above last year by a wide margin, but it’s difficult to distinguish the impact of the recent tax increase versus economic growth, and we won’t be able to discern that until April.

November tax receipts totaled $463.50 million, which is $62.23 million over November last year. Individual income tax collections totaled $207.62 million for the month, while sales tax revenue came in at $192.63 million. Corporate income tax totaled $379,518.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.

Promoting Employment Across Kansas, or PEAK

An interactive visualization of data regarding PEAK (Promoting Employment Across Kansas), an economic development incentive program.

PEAK, or Promoting Employment Across Kansas, is an economic development program administered by the Kansas Department of Commerce. Information about PEAK from that department may be found at Promoting Employment Across Kansas. Other information about PEAK is available from the Department of Revenue and from Voice for Liberty.

I’ve gathered information about PEAK projects and present the data in an interactive visualization. The List table is a simply list of the available data.

The table shows the count of PEAK projects, the sum of new or retained jobs, and the sum of the annual benefits for the projects.

In the table view, you may select which counties appear. Also, a slider lets you choose the minimum number of projects a county must have in order to appear. This is helpful as there are many counties with just one or two projects.

Click here to access the visualization.

Source of data is Kanview, specifically this page: Promoting Employment Across Kansas (PEAK) Program.

Example from the visualization.
Wichita city government

Wichita personal income up, a little

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For 2016, personal income in Wichita rose, but is still below 2014 levels.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis, an agency of the United States Department of Commerce, has released personal income figures for metropolitan areas through 2016. For the Wichita metropolitan statistical area, personal income in 2016 rose slightly from 2015 level, but is still below the 2014 level. In real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, personal income fell in 2016.

Click for larger.

The trend in personal income mirrors that of the Wichita-area GDP, which is the value of goods and services produced. That fell in 2016. 1

To access an interactive visualization of personal income for all metropolitan areas, click here.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.

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Notes

  1. Weeks, Bob. Wichita economy shrinks. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/wichita-economy-shrinks/. ↩

Personal income by metropolitan area

An interactive visualization of personal income growth and change in metropolitan areas.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis, an agency of the United States Department of Commerce, collects and analyses data regarding the U.S. and world economies. One series is personal income, defined by BEA as “Personal income is the income received by, or on behalf of, all persons from all sources: from participation as laborers in production, from owning a home or unincorporated business, from the ownership of financial assets, and from government and business in the form of transfer receipts. It includes income from domestic sources as well as from the rest of the world. Personal income is the income that is available to persons for consumption expenditures, taxes, interest payments, transfer payments to governments and the rest of the world, or for saving.” 1

This interactive visualization holds personal income, per capita personal income, and population for United States metropolitan areas. I’ve adjusted some figures for the effects of inflation by adjusting them to 2016 dollars.

Click here to access the visualization.

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Notes

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.
  1. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Local Area Personal Income. Available at https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/lapi/lapi_newsrelease.htm. ↩
Wichita and Kansas schools

Kansas school fund balances

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Kansas school fund balances rose this year, in both absolute dollars and dollars per pupil.

As Kansans debate school funding, as the Kansas Supreme Court orders more school spending, and as schools insist that spending has been slashed, a fact remains: Kansas schools don’t spend all the money they’ve been given. Unspent fund balances grow in many years, and grew this year.

Fund balances are necessary for cash flow management. They buffer the flows of receipts and expenditures. The issue is what levels of balances are necessary, and, more importantly, how the balances change over years.

In Kansas, school districts report fund balances on July 1 of each year. Looking at fund balances on that date over time gives insight into how districts are managing receipts and expenditures. If a fund balance falls from July 1 of one year to July 1 of the next year, it means that the district spent more money from the fund than it put in the fund. The opposite is also true: If a balance rises, it means less was spent than was put in.

Based on recent data from the Kansas State Department of Education, fund balances rose rapidly after 2008, remained largely level from 2011 through 2015, and rose for 2016 and 2017.

For the school year ending in 2017, total fund balances were $2,016,863,070. (This value does not include non-school funds like museums and recreation center funds.) For 2016, the figure was $1,871,026,493. This is an increase of $145,836,577, or 7.8 percent.

Around half of these fund balances are in bond and capital funds, which are different from operating funds. Without these capital funds, balances rose from $935,116,567 to $970,188,922. This is an increase of $35,072,355, or 3.8 percent.

When fund balances rise, it is because schools did not spend all their revenue. If schools say that cuts had to be made, and at the same time fund balances are rising, Kansans might wonder why schools did not spend some of these idle fund balances.

I’ve gathered data about unspent Kansas school funds from Kansas State Department of Education and present it as an interactive visualization in a variety of tables and charts. Data is available for each district since 2008. You may explore the data yourself by using the visualization. Click here to open it in a new window. Data is from Kansas State Department of Education in current dollars (not adjusted for inflation). Visualization created using Tableau Public.

Top chart: Fund balances in all funds except non-school funds. Bottom: Without bond and capital funds. Click for larger.
Kansas state government

Kansas hotel tax collections

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Kansas hotel guest tax collections presented in an interactive visualization.

Cities and counties in Kansas may levy a transient guest tax collection on hotel guests. It is sometimes called a bed tax or guest tax. The tax is collected as a percentage of total room revenue, not the number of rooms or the rate charged for rooms. While the Kansas Department of Revenue collects the tax, the proceeds are returned to the cities or counties, except for a two percent processing fee. In Wichita the rate is six percent.

In some cases, jurisdictions may levy additional taxes that may not be paid to the Kansas Department of Revenue. This is the case with the Wichita city tourism fee, which took effect on January 1, 2015. This tax of 2.75% is paid directly to the city1, so it doesn’t appear in KDOR figures.

Also, jurisdictions may change the tax rate. The Kansas Department of Revenue maintains a list of taxes charged. 2

The visualization has three views of data. One is a table of collections, including percent change from the previous year. A line chart shows the dollar amount of collections. A second line chart shows collections indexed to a common starting point. This is useful for comparing the relative change in guest tax collections. These line charts show data as the average of the previous 12 months.

Examples of nondisclosure.
This data does not represent all hotels in Kansas. Confidentiality rules prohibit disclosure when a jurisdiction has a small number of hotels. In the nearby example, the value “C” is reported for Sedgwick County, indicating such non-disclosure. Obviously, there are hotels in Sedgwick County. But considering hotels in Sedgwick County that are not located in cities like Wichita, the number is too small to report, based on confidentiality guidelines. Similarly, for small cities, data is probably not available to the public.

Of note, while Wichita is the largest city in Kansas, Overland Park collects the most hotel guest tax. Of the largest markets in Kansas, Wichita has experienced the least growth in hotel tax collections since 2010.

Click here to access the visualization.

Guest tax collections in largest hotel markets in Kansas, indexed change. Click for larger.

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Notes

  1. City of Wichita ordinance 49-745. Available at http://www.wichita.gov/CityClerk/OrdanicesDocuments/49-745%20TBID%20Fee%20Ordinance.pdf. ↩
  2. Kansas Department of Revenue. Transient Guest Tax Rates, Effective Dates, and Number of Active Accounts. Available at https://www.ksrevenue.org/pdf/tgratesfilers.pdf. ↩

Kansas tax receipts

Kansas tax receipts by category, presented in an interactive visualization.

The Kansas Division of the Budget publishes monthly statistics regarding tax collections. I’ve gathered these figures present them in an interactive visualization. In the visualization, there are these available tabs:

  • Table: A table of data. For each month the two data items supplied by the state are the actual value and the estimated value. This table also holds the computed variance, or difference, between the actual value and the estimated value. A positive number means the actual value was greater than the estimated value.

  • Collections: Shows monthly collections for each component. Because monthly numbers vary widely, this data is presented as the moving average of the previous 12 months.

  • Annual Change: Shows the change from the same month of the previous year. A positive value means the value for the month is greater than the same month last year.

  • Estimates: The Governor’s Consensus Revenue Estimating Working Group provides monthly estimates. This chart shows the variance, or difference, between the actual value and the estimated value. A positive number means the actual value was greater than the estimated value.

  • Running Total Estimates: This is the cumulative sum of the estimate variances, reset to zero at the start of each fiscal year (July 1).

  • Running Total Change from Prior Year: This is the cumulative sum of the monthly changes from the prior year, reset to zero at the start of each fiscal year (July 1).

Source of data is Kansas Division of the Budget.

Click here to use the visualization.

Example from the visualization.
Economics

Metro area employment and unemployment

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An interactive visualization of labor force, employment, and unemployment rate for all metropolitan areas in the United States.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, makes monthly employment and unemployment statistics available. I’ve gathered them for all metropolitan areas and present them in an interactive visualization.

The labor force, specifically the civilian labor force, are those people working, plus those people actively searching for work, minus people under 16 years of age, minus people living in institutions (for example, correctional facilities, long-term care hospitals, and nursing homes), minus people on active duty in the Armed Forces. 1

BLS defines unemployed people as: “Persons aged 16 years and older who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.” 2

The unemployment rate is “the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.” 3

In the visualization you may select tabs to show a table or a chart. You may select a range of dates and the metro areas that appear.

The home page for the visualiation is here.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.

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Notes

  1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Glossary. Available at https://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm. ↩
  2. Ibid. ↩
  3. Ibid. ↩

Metro area employment and unemployment

An interactive visualization of labor force, employment, and unemployment rate for all metropolitan areas in the United States.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, makes monthly employment and unemployment statistics available. I’ve gathered them for all metropolitan areas and present them in an interactive visualization.

This data comes from the BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. 1 It is part of the Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), which is a “monthly survey of households conducted by the Bureau of Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” 2 This data is seasonally adjusted.

From BLS, here are definitions of the data: 3

  • The civilian labor force and unemployment data are based on the same concepts and definitions as those used for the official national estimates obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a sample survey of households that is conducted for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) by the U.S. Census Bureau. The LAUS program measures employed persons and unemployed persons on a place-of-residence basis. The universe for each is the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years of age and older.

  • Civilian labor force. Included are all persons in the civilian noninstitutional population ages 16 and older classified as either employed or unemployed.

  • Employed persons are those who did any work at all for pay or profit in the reference week (typically the week including the 12th of the month) or worked 15 hours or more without pay in a family business or farm, plus those not working who had a job from which they were temporarily absent, whether or not paid, for such reasons as labor-management dispute, illness, or vacation.

  • Unemployed persons are those who were not employed during the reference week (based on the definition above), had actively looked for a job sometime in the 4-week period ending with the reference week, and were currently available for work; persons on layoff expecting recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed.

  • The civilian labor force is the sum of employed and unemployed persons. The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed as a percent of the civilian labor force.

Besides the household survey, BLS also produces employment data through a survey of employers, called the payroll or establishment survey. BLS clarifies:

Both surveys are needed for a complete picture of the labor market.

The payroll survey (CES) is designed to measure employment, hours, and earnings in the nonfarm sector, with industry and geographic detail. The survey is best known for providing a highly reliable gauge of monthly change in nonfarm payroll employment. A representative sample of businesses in the U.S. provides the data for the payroll survey.

The household survey (CPS) is designed to measure the labor force status of the civilian noninstitutional population with demographic detail. The national unemployment rate is the best-known statistic produced from the household survey. The survey also provides a measure of employed people, one that includes agricultural workers and the self-employed. A representative sample of U.S. households provides the information for the household survey. 4

In the visualization you may select tabs to show a table or one of several charts. You may select a range of dates and the metro areas that appear. Click on color legends to highlight a series. USe Ctrl+Click to add additional series.

To use the visualization, click on Civilian labor force and unemployment by metropolitan area.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.

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Notes

  1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. Available at https://www.bls.gov/lau/. ↩
  2. Burea of Labor Statistics. Current Population Survey. Available at https://www.bls.gov/cps/. ↩
  3. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Technical Note. Available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.tn.htm. ↩
  4. Bueau of Labor Statistics. *Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey: Comparing employment from the BLS household and payroll surveys. Available at https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ces_cps_trends.htm. ↩
Wichita city government

Wichita employment trends

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While the unemployment rate in the Wichita metropolitan area has been declining, the numbers behind the decline are not encouraging.

The unemployment rate, a widely-cited measure of the health of an economy, is not an absolute measure. Instead, it is a ratio, specifically the ratio of the number of unemployed people to the number of people in the labor force. (The labor force, broadly, is the number of persons working plus those actively looking for work. 1)

It is entirely possible that the unemployment rate falls while the number of people employed also falls. This is the general trend in Wichita for the past seven years or so. Here are some figures from Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor: 2

The May 2017 unemployment rate declined to just about half the January 2011 rate. The number of employed persons rose by 1.1 percent. The labor force fell by 3.7 percent.

If we consider only unemployment rate, it looks like the Wichita area is prospering. But the unemployment rate hides bad news: The number of jobs increased only slightly, and the labor force fell. While it’s good that there are more people working, the decline in the labor force is a problem.

In the nearby chart you can see these effects. The unemployment rate has been declining, although it has recently increased slightly. The labor force has been declining. The number of employed persons has increased, although it has recently declined.

To use an interactive visualization of employment data for Wichita, click here.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.

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Notes

  1. The labor force, specifically the civilian labor force, are those people working, plus those people actively searching for work, minus people under 16 years of age, minus people living in institutions (for example, correctional facilities, long-term care hospitals, and nursing homes), minus people on active duty in the Armed Forces.
    BLS defines unemployed people as: “Persons aged 16 years and older who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.”
    The unemployment rate is “the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.”
    Bureau of Labor Statistics. Glossary. Available at https://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm. ↩
  2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Available at https://www.bls.gov/cps/. ↩

Wichita metro employment and unemployment

An interactive visualization of labor force, employment, and unemployment for the Wichita MSA.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, makes monthly employment and unemployment statistics available. 1 I’ve gathered them for the Wichita metropolitan area and present them in an interactive visualization.

This data comes from the BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. 2 It is part of the Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), which is a “monthly survey of households conducted by the Bureau of Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” 3

In the visualization you may select tabs to show a table or charts. The moving average tab holds smoothed data, using the average of all values for the previous year. You may also select a range of dates for the charts.

To use the visualization, click here.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.

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Notes

  1. The labor force, specifically the civilian labor force, are those people working, plus those people actively searching for work, minus people under 16 years of age, minus people living in institutions (for example, correctional facilities, long-term care hospitals, and nursing homes), minus people on active duty in the Armed Forces.
    BLS defines unemployed people as: “Persons aged 16 years and older who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.”
    The unemployment rate is “the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.”
    Bureau of Labor Statistics. Glossary. Available at https://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm. ↩
  2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. Available at https://www.bls.gov/lau/. ↩
  3. Burea of Labor Statistics. Current Population Survey. Available at https://www.bls.gov/cps/. ↩
Taxation

Tax collections by the states

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An interactive visualization of tax collections by state governments.

Each year the United States Census Bureau collects data from the states regarding tax collections in various categories. I present this data in an interactive visualization.

From this data we can see a number of valuable comparisons. For example, it is often said in Kansas that we can’t eliminate our income tax as has Texas, because we don’t have as much oil severance tax revenue. From the data we see that Texas collected $84 per person in severance tax, while Kansas collected $17 per person. This difference is far larger than the difference in total tax collections between these states.

Similarly, when comparing Kansas to Florida — which like Texas has no income tax — the large amount of tourism in Florida is said to generate enough revenue to allow zero income tax. But, in 2016 Florida collected $1,081 per person in sales tax, while Kansas collected $1,115 per person. Florida does not collect sales tax on groceries, so it may be that visitors pay more of the sales tax burden. But, Kansas still collects more sales tax on a per-capita basis, and Kansas collects much more tax in total than Florida, again on a per-capita basis.

Click here to learn more and access the visualization.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.
Economics

National Transit Database, an interactive visualization

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An interactive visualization of data over time from the National Transit Database.

Do you wonder how much it costs to run your transit system? The National Transit Database holds data for transit systems in the U.S. I’ve gathered some key statistics and presented them in an interactive visualization.

In the case of Wichita, we see that “OpExp per PMT” for 2015 is $1.02. This is total operating expense per passenger mile traveled. It’s not the cost to move a bus a mile down the street. It’s the cost to move one passenger one mile. And, it is operating cost only, which means the costs of the buses are not included.

Some definitions used in the database:

  • UZA: The name of the urbanized area served primarily by a transit agency.
  • UPT: Unlinked passenger trips.
  • PMT: Passenger miles traveled.
  • Total OpExp: Total operating expense.

The visualization holds three tabs. One is a table of figures. The other two illustrate data for a single transit system or single mode.

Click here to access the visualization.

Example from the visualization for Wichita. Click for larger.
Wichita city government

Airport traffic statistics, 2016

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Airport traffic data presented in an interactive visualization, updated through 2016.

Example from the visualization, showing Wichita compared to all airports. Click for larger.
A few observations regarding Wichita airport traffic as compared to the nation:

  • Since 2014, passenger traffic at the Wichita airport has been level, while increasing for the nation.
  • The number of departures has been declining in Wichita, while level and increasing for the nation.
  • The number of available seats on departing flights from Wichita has been mostly level while rising for the nation.

To view and use the interactive visualization, click here.