What does the federal government spend your tax dollars on? Social insurance programs, mostly
From Social Security to national parks, a look at long-range trends in federal outlays relative to the U.S. economy
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Drew DeSilver
Senior Writer/Editor
Drew DeSilver is a senior writer at Pew Research Center.
Publications
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Access to paid family leave varies widely across employers, industries
Americans generally support paid family and medical leave, according to a new Pew Research Center survey, but relatively few workers have access to it. Access to paid leave varies considerably by industry, type of employer and employer’s size.
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The fading of the green: Fewer Americans identify as Irish
The ranks of Americans who trace their ancestry back to Ireland – long one of the most prominent subgroups in American society – are slowly declining.
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Immigrants don’t make up a majority of workers in any U.S. industry
Immigrants made up 17.2% of the total U.S. workforce in 2014, or about 27 million workers. Private households were the biggest immigrant-employing “industry,” followed by textile, apparel and leather manufacturers and the farm sector.
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What the unemployment rate does – and doesn’t – say about the economy
Although the unemployment rate gets most of the attention, the government’s monthly jobs report contains lots of other data that, properly interpreted, can provide a fuller picture of the U.S. economy.
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Q&A with Solomon Messing of Pew Research Center’s Data Labs
A conversation with the director of the Center’s Data Labs team on their new report on congressional communications and the uses and misuses of “big data.”
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U.S. students’ academic achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries
American students continue to rank around the middle of the pack, and behind many other advanced industrial nations, in international assessments of math, science and reading.
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World’s Muslim population more widespread than you might think
While many, especially in the U.S., may associate Islam with the Middle East or North Africa, nearly two-thirds of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region.
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Trump’s Cabinet will be one of most business-heavy in U.S. history
Assuming all of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees are confirmed, he will have one of the most heavily business-oriented Cabinets in U.S. history. Five of the 14 people Trump has nominated to be Cabinet secretaries have spent their entire careers in the business world, with no public office or senior military service on their resumes.
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Blacks and Hispanics face extra challenges in getting home loans
Black and Hispanic mortgage applicants are denied more frequently than whites and Asians, and when they do obtain mortgages they tend to pay higher rates.
