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    Senate Legislative Process A Mystery To Many

    Overview The public has consistently expressed strong interest in the health care debate, but relatively few Americans can correctly answer two key questions related to the Senate’s consideration of health care legislation. In the latest installment of the Pew Research Center’s News IQ Quiz, just 32% know that the Senate passed its version of the […]

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    Twitter and YouTube Continue to Focus on Haiti while Blogs Move On

    The recovery efforts following the tragic earthquake in Haiti continued to be the main subject of interest in parts of social media last week—particularly on Twitter and YouTube. Blogs also discussed details of the quake’s aftermath, but the blogosphere paid more attention to other topics, including warnings from European countries about security risks involved with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

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    How the Population Clock Works

    The population clock on the All Things Census page is derived using national-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which produces estimates of the country’s total resident population and the components that are the building blocks of  demographic change. Those components include births, deaths and net international migration, computed using data from the Census Bureau […]

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    67% Now Doubt Health Care Bill Will Pass This Year

    Summary of Findings Americans tracked the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti more closely than any other major news last week, but also kept a close watch on two intertwined stories: the fate of health care legislation in Washington and the outcome of last week’s special election for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Nearly half […]

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    Why the U.S. Census Does Not Ask about Religion

    The U.S. Census Bureau has not asked questions about religion since the 1950s, but the federal government did gather some information about religion for about a century before that.

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    It’s All About Jobs, Except When It’s Not

    A look at the connection between the rise and fall of joblessness and the political fortunes of past presidents in the modern era is instructive although the lessons to be drawn are far from crystal clear. Thus far, only Ronald Reagan’s ratings in his first term have borne as close a connection as have Obama’s to changes in the unemployment rate.

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    Conducting the 2010 Census

    Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census Robert Groves discusses the operational flow of the 2010 Census, design features intended to increase participation, the bureau’s communications campaign, real-time monitoring/management, and evaluation of the quality of the census.

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    A Brief History of Religion and the U.S. Census

    Note: For a more recent overview of the Census Bureau’s history of asking about religion, read this April 2023 article. The U.S. Census Bureau has not asked questions about religion since the 1950s, but the federal government did gather some information about religion for about a century before that. Starting in 1850, census takers began […]