Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

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  • short reads

    King’s “I have a dream” speech, by the numbers

    Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech 50 years ago today on Washington D.C.’s National Mall and Memorial Parks has become one of the most famous, and quoted, pieces of oratory in U.S. history (though that wasn’t apparent to everyone at the time). But how well have the aspirations King so memorably expressed been realized? We ran […]

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    Middle Class II

    Survey Details: Conducted July 2012 | File Release Date: 23 August 2013

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    King’s Dream Remains an Elusive Goal; Many Americans See Racial Disparities

    Five decades after Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C., a new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that fewer than half (45%) of all Americans say the country has made substantial progress toward racial equality and about the same share (49%) say that “a lot more” remains to be done.

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    Race in America: Tracking 50 Years of Demographic Trends

    Explore the areas where the white-black racial gap has narrowed, widened or remained roughly the same, based on data from U.S. government sources over the past several decades. Hispanic and Asian data is also included in years available.

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    Race Gap Narrows and Widens

    This posting links to a Pew Research Center August 2013 report that includes demographic and public opinion data on racial equality and inequality in the U.s.

  • short reads

    Black unemployment rate is consistently twice that of whites

    Much has changed for African-Americans since the 1963 March on Washington (which, recall, was a march for “Jobs and Freedom”), but one thing hasn’t: The unemployment rate among blacks is still about double that among whites, as it has been for most of the past six decades.

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    Mothers and work: What’s ’ideal’?

    For most American mothers, part-time work would be their ideal work situation, preferred over full-time work or not working at all outside the home.