Research

View graphs of the Changing Shape of America's Metro Areas. Each graph shows an individual demographic characteristic over time (1990, 2012 and 2015).

Today the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center released the 2014 population estimates for Virginia’s counties and cities. The most notable trend is that Virginia’s population is growing much more slowly than in any recent decade, at an annual rate of less than 1 percent since 2010. The slowdown can be attributed to both fewer […]

On Friday, January 9, President Obama announced America’s College Promise, his new vision for US community colleges, at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee, having released this teaser just the day before.In its press release on the plan, the White House explained its proposal to make community college “free for everybody who’s willing to work […]

Today, Ms. Mollie Orshanky, best know for her work on poverty, would have been 100 years old. Her research became the foundation for the Federal Poverty Guidelines. Though this measure has been criticized, it is important to remember Mollie Orshansky’s work was groundbreaking for its time.On her birthday, it is worth pausing to remember who […]

The map below was one of the more interesting maps produced after the census in 2010. It shows how the United States’ demographic center of gravity has shifted westward each census since the first in 1790. The center of population is essentially the point on which a flat, firm map of the United States would […]

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a local food bank asking if we knew the number of people receiving SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps) in a certain locality. He was trying to estimate the “number of hungry people” in his community and figured SNAP recipients […]

The definition of “living wage” is difficult to nail down. In 2012, members of the University of Virginia community issued a living wage demand of $13.00 per hour for University employees, to be adjusted yearly. Amy Glasmeier, the researcher behind the MIT Living Wage Calculator, defines living wage as “just enough to pay bills for the necessities […]

This week, the Demographics Research Group published a new Census Brief covering recent trends in Virginia’s public school enrollment. Despite the weak economy, most of Virginia’s localities have continued to grow in population during the past five years. Throughout the recession and the subsequent recovery, Virginia has consistently had more people moving in than out. […]

Virginia is home to nearly 720,000 veterans. In observance of National Veterans Day (11 November), we developed a brief demographic profile of veterans in the Commonwealth.Who are they?About a third of veterans are between the ages of 35 – 55. While nationally only 8 percent of veterans are women, in Virginia the share is higher […]

In recent decades, the rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the United States has easily been the most discussed population trend. Fueled by immigration and births, the U.S. Hispanic population grew from 4 percent of the population in 1970 to 16 percent—or over 50 million—by 2010. The increase in the U.S. Hispanic population has […]