Census deja-vu all over again

A couple of News Journal colleagues and I drove to American University in Washington, D.C., yesterday for an IRE workshop on the census. It was a long day (up at 5 a.m. and home about 9:30 p.m.), but it was a good trip.

I already knew a lot of the nuts and bolts of the census release. But I picked up several useful tips about the questions on the American Community Survey, the use of margins of error and some of the features on American FactFinder. It's all going to come in handy in a couple of months when the data start rolling in.

The last couple of hours of the workshop were spent talking about story ideas that we can do from the ACS and the Census 2010 data. I filled a sheet of paper with possible ideas, which I hope to tick off over the next several months. Maybe I won't get to all of them, but I'll try.

Several times during the day, I had the feeling I had seen this whole movie before. I remember sitting in a lecture hall at, I think, University of Maryland almost exactly 10 years ago and learning a lot of the same things. Back then, we were all obsessed with what to do with the multi-race question. In the end, it turned out to be only a minor issue because fewer than 2 percent of the population checked off more than one race. It will probably be a higher percentage this time around, though.

Gonna be fun.

Brainy Delawareans

When I came to Delaware a decade ago, several people told me that the state -- or maybe it was New Castle County -- had the nation's highest percentage of people with advanced academic degrees.

It sounded plausible. Delaware has a reputation of being a home to scientists, inventors, bankers and lawyers.

Alas, it isn't true. The latest numbers from the American Community Survey show Delaware ranks 11th, with 11.4% of adults holding advanced degrees. Massachusetts ranks first, with 16.4%. If you really want to be around a bunch of educated people, go to Washington, D.C., where 28% of adults have advanced degrees.

The claim isn't true for New Castle County, either; about 13.7 percent of its adults have advanced degrees. That's still higher than the national figure of 10.3% but far below the 23.8% in Middlesex County, Mass., home of Harvard and MIT.

Paradise has its price

I can't stand the show, but my wife likes to watch House Hunters on HGTV. If you've never seen it, each half-hour show profiles a couple while they're shopping for a house. They look at three houses and then decide. (I'm sure they look at lots more houses, but the show only follows them as they look at three.)

House-buying is one of life's biggest headaches, if you ask me. I like living in a house, I like working on my house, I take pride in my house. But buying it is just a big chore, and I don't know why anyone would want to watch a TV show about it. Might as well have a TV show called "The Root Canal Hour."

That said, it was on the other night, and the profiled couple was looking at houses in Hawaii. I was shocked at the prices -- $900 grand for a shabby little thing!

So this article from Pacific Business News caught my eye. It confirms what I saw on House Hunters: Hawaii has nation's highest property values.

The article, based on the latest American Community Survey data, says the median value of a home in Hawaii is $517,600. Guess that's the price of living in paradise.

Delaware ranks 14th in that list, with a median home value of $249,400. That's more than six times the price of my first house, but seeing the price of Hawaii's houses takes a little bit of the sting out of it all.

The cheapest place to live is West Virginia. It has a median home value of $94,500. Little pink houses for you and me.

Wealth gap continues to widen in America

Another interesting set of stats that came out of last week's income/poverty numbers from the Census Bureau measured income inequality.

Basically, the numbers point to what we hear everyone say: The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class is shrinking.

The CB report didn't include Delaware stats, but the national numbers are telling.

Between 2000 and 2009, the poorest 10 percent of American households saw their incomes drop 8 percent, to $12,120. But the richest 5 percent of households saw their incomes drop just 0.5 percent during the same period, to $180,001 or more.

How accurate are the poverty numbers?

If you really want to geek out on the new poverty stats, here's an opinion piece on CNN from a couple of economists about different ways to measure poverty.

It's here, http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/20/meyer.sullivan.census.poverty/.

Basically, they say the Census Bureau doesn't count income from government anti-poverty programs.

A Data-Filled Fall

Looks like we'll have plenty of stuff to keep us busy for a long time.

A Data-Filled Fall - The Director's Blog

Recession takes a toll on Delaware and its working poor

The latest Census Bureau report shows how deeply the recession cut into the lives of Delaware's working poor.

Experts had predicted a big increase in the poverty rate. Sure enough, the poverty rate increased to 14.3% last year nationwide, up from 13.2% in 2008.

The growth was even more dramatic in Delaware: from 9.6% in 2008 to 12.3% in 2009.

Along with the poverty rate growth, the report showed what we could all feel in our own wallets. Inflation continues to eat away at our earning power, which has dropped by thousands of dollars in the past decade.

And when people lose their jobs, they also lose health insurance. In Delaware, 13.4% of residents lack health insurance, the highest figure since the Census Bureau began tracking the number in 1999.

Those are the numbers. But I wanted to meet the people behind them, so I went to Kingswood United Methodist Church on Thursday to talk to the folks who came for a meal at Hope Dining Room. The volunteers -- who come from a variety of churches in the Newark area -- were serving meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans for lunch. As always, I met some people who made a lasting impression on me.

There was Gwen Barrett, who has been looking for work for several months. And John Heron, who has two associates degrees (in culinary arts and hospitality management) but still can't get a job. Both said they were suffering from depression, and I could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. But only Gwen was taking medicine for it; John was trying to cope on his own because he doesn't have insurance. They've both been on my mind since meeting them the other day. I hope they find jobs soon.

 Here's the story, Poverty climbed during crunch.