Illegal US Immigrants Pay Billions in Taxes, But Is It Enough?
Spurred by Republican Donald Trump’s controversial comments, immigration is a hot-button issue this presidential election season. The GOP front-runner repeatedly brings the issue up, saying that undocumented immigrants cost the United States “hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, housing costs, education costs, welfare costs, etc.” A 2010 report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a […]
Innovation Leader US Could Soon Lose Its Edge
The United States leads the world in innovation but could soon lose its competitive edge. A Washington, D.C.-based think tank ranked the U.S. 10th when it comes to government policies in support of global innovation, behind countries like Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. “We’ve kind of enjoyed this huge lead since basically the end of […]
Americans Work More Than Just About Anyone
No matter who you ask, it’s pretty clear that Americans work more than just about anyone else in moderately rich countries. Americans are also 400 percent more productive today than in 1950, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. residents worked about 1,789 hours in 2014, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. That’s […]
More than One-Third of US Innovators Are Immigrants
More than one-third of U.S. innovators are foreign born which suggests highly educated immigrants just might be one of America’s most valuable resources. Despite only making up 13.5 percent of all U.S. residents, 35 percent of those responsible for some of the most important innovations in America are foreign-born people who usually have a PhD […]
This Map Shows Where US Job Market Is Booming
U.S. businesses added more jobs in the past two years than at any other time since the 1990s, according to The White House. The unemployment rate currently stands at 4.9 percent, down from 10 percent in 2009. Over the past six years, American businesses created 14 million new jobs. More than 2.4 million of these […]
Most US Wealth Is Concentrated in These 10 Areas
Wealth and influence are concentrated in certain areas of the United States and a new animated map shows just how mammoth some local economies are when compared on a national scale. Metrocosm’s Max Galka created the map, which shows every U.S. county in proportion to its share of the total U.S. GDP (gross domestic product). Galka’s map becomes distorted […]
Who’s Losing Out on the American Dream?
Recovering from the housing bust of 2008 has been harder on some Americans than others, most notably older millennials, Hispanics, the upper middle class and the wealthy. The 2008 financial crisis caused the greatest disruption in the U.S. housing market since the Great Depression in the 1930s, which was the lengthiest, deepest economic downturn ever in the […]
Here are the Most Googled Companies in Each State
Americans who search for the term “coca cola” most likely live in Georgia, while the Pepsi people are probably in Chicago. Career resource website Zippia researched which companies each state googles more than any other. Some of the results aren’t surprising. The most searched company in Michigan, home to the “Big Three” — the largest […]
The Big Freeze Is Coming to These US Jobs
The U.S. Postal Service employs more than a half-million workers who deliver more mail to more people in a larger geographical area than any other postal service in the world. Their unofficial motto is, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” […]
Dramatic Drop in Teen Workers Is Bad News for US Workforce
Over the past 15 years, the number of American teenagers working part-time jobs has decreased dramatically, which is bad news for the U.S. labor market. In 2014, only 1 in 5 teens in school (22 percent) had a job, down 16 percentage points from 2000, when more than 1 in 3 teens in school (38 […]