Fentanyl overdose deaths in the U.S. have dropped significantly due to a crackdown on precursor chemicals from China, marking a major public policy success.
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David Waldron is an economist in Indianapolis with interests in economics and demography, focusing on the industrial Midwest.
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The post discusses a significant decline in support for gender equality among American boys, based on data from the Monitoring the Future survey. It highlights a drop in agreement with equal job opportunities and equal pay for wom...
The post discusses Indiana lawmakers' proposal to reduce unemployment insurance benefits from 26 weeks to 14 weeks, highlighting the potential negative impacts on workers and the economy. While proponents argue that shorter benefi...
The post discusses the impact of the electoral college on voter power in the U.S., highlighting that not all votes carry the same weight due to state-specific factors. It explains how the electoral college has historically benefit...
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The post discusses the recent firing of BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer by President Trump, who made unfounded claims about the integrity of jobs data. It explains the methodology behind the BLS's jobs numbers, emphasizing that ...
The post discusses President Trump's implementation of tariffs and its negative impact on markets and international trade. It argues that protectionist policies will not reverse the long-term decline of the U.S. manufacturing sect...
The post discusses the increase in disabled workers in 2022 compared to 2019, referencing a New York Federal Reserve report that attributes this rise to COVID-19 as a mass disabling event. The author critiques claims that the incr...
The article discusses the perceived increase in difficulty of the word game Wordle since its acquisition by the New York Times. It analyzes factors contributing to a word's difficulty, such as letter frequency, word obscurity, and...
The post discusses the unexpected low sightings of Brood X cicadas in Indianapolis during their 17-year emergence, contrasting with expectations based on media reports. A survey of Indiana residents revealed that many were disappo...
The blog post discusses the NFL's coin toss rules prior to and after the 2008 rule change, highlighting how the winner's choice was limited to receiving or defending a goal. It notes that from 1999 to 2007, teams overwhelmingly ch...
The post discusses the decline of high-tech manufacturing in the U.S., highlighting three key sub-sectors: computer and electronic products, pharmaceuticals and medicine, and aerospace products. It uses 2022 data to illustrate emp...
The post compares two popular R packages for data manipulation: data.table and dplyr. It highlights data.table's efficiency with larger datasets and dplyr's user-friendly syntax as part of the tidyverse. The author analyzes StackO...
The yield curve, which indicates the difference between short- and long-term interest rates, has historically been a reliable predictor of economic recessions. Despite an inversion in April 2022, the U.S. economy has avoided reces...
A Gallup survey reveals a significant partisan divide in perceptions of city safety, with Republicans rating cities more negatively than Democrats, except for Miami and Dallas. Notably, safety ratings do not correlate with actual ...
The post discusses the debate surrounding the percentage of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck, often cited as 60% by Senator Bernie Sanders. It critiques the methodologies used by various commentators to support this figure, p...
Indiana's Governor Eric Holcomb opted not to reinstate mask mandates in schools, leaving the decision to local school boards. Only 29% of public school corporations began the year with mandates, but those that did reported lower C...
The article discusses the alarming prevalence of school shootings in the U.S., highlighting that while 42 shootings in 2021 is a record high, the broader impact on students extends beyond fatalities. It emphasizes that nearly 44,0...
Kevin Drum's argument that homeownership rates among young adults in the U.S. are stable is challenged by an analysis of homeownership definitions and data. The author critiques Drum's use of extrapolated data and clarifies that h...
The post discusses the rising reports of cognitive disabilities, specifically difficulty in remembering or concentrating, among Americans aged 18 to 54 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The percentage of individuals reporting such dif...
The post discusses the distribution of American housing structures based on their construction dates, highlighting that pre-1960 homes are prevalent in the Northeast and Midwest, while more recent constructions (1980-2023) are con...
The blog post discusses the evolution of remote work since the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting that while the percentage of people working from home peaked at 41% in May 2020, it fell to 10% by September 2022. The post examines di...
0Watch COVID-19 Spread Across the United States
2020-07-04 •
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