Census Bureau Profile America Facts for Features: The Fourth of July - 2022

The Fourth of July: 2022 JUNE 29, 2022 On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. As we celebrate this Independence Day, we reflect on how our Founding Fathers enshrined in our Constitution the importance of statistics as a vital tool for measuring America. Most of the following facts are possible thanks to responses to U.S. Census Bureau censuses and surveys. We appreciate the public's cooperation as we continuously measure our people, places and economy.  Did You Know? 2.5 million The estimated number of people living in the newly independent nation in July 1776. Source: Historical Statistics of the United States: 1789-1945 331,449,281 The nation's population on April 1, 2020. Source: 2020 Census 56 The number of signers of the Declaration of Independence. It is also worth noting that: John Hancock, a merchant by trade, was the first signer. In 2020, more than 1 million business establishments nationally with paid employees were in the retail trade industry like Hancock. Source: 2020 County Business Patterns, Table CB2000CBP Benjamin Franklin, who represented Pennsylvania, was the oldest signer of the Declaration of Independence at age 70. Pennsylvania had a resident population of 13,002,700 on April 1, 2020. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina was the youngest signer at age 26. South Carolina had a resident population of 5,118,425 on April 1, 2020. Source: 2020 Census                                       Patriotic Places  Places with the word "liberty" in their names. Source: Vintage 2021 Population Estimates Places with the word "union" in their names. Source: Vintage 2021 Population Estimates                                        Related News Products  Previous Facts for Features FFF: The Fourth of July: 2021 FFF: The Fourth of July: 2020 The Fourth of July: 2019 FFF: The Fourth of July: 2018 FFF: The Fourth of July: 2017 FFF: The Fourth of July: 2016 Stats for Stories Bill of Rights Day Ancestor Appreciation Day Constitution Day and Citizenship Day Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance Washington, D.C. 150th Government Anniversary (1871) National Election Day (Presidential) Inauguration Day Previous Graphics Happy 245th Birthday America! (2021) Fun Facts: Fourth of July (2020) Fun Facts: Fourth of July (2019) The Fourth of July (2018) Declaring Independence (2017) Greetings From Liberty USA (2016) ### Editor's note: The preceding data were collected from a variety of sources and may be subject to sampling variability and other sources of error. We typically release Facts for Features at least a month before an observance to accommodate magazine production timelines. Questions or comments? Contact the Census Bureau's Public Information Office at 301-763-3030 or pio@census.gov. Learn More Help us spread the word about Census Bureau data! Share this on social media or forward it to a friend. Share This About the Census Bureau We serve as the nation's leading provider of quality data about its people and economy. The Census Bureau is the federal government's largest statistical agency. As the world's premier statistical agency, we are dedicated to making our nation a better place. Policy-makers, businesses, and the public use our data to make informed decisions. Resources for Media For media interviews, please contact the Public Information Office Toll Free at 877-861-2010, 301-763-3030, or pio@census.gov.

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Fertility Rates: Declined for Younger Women, Increased for Older Women (US Census data)

Demographics is a topic coming up from time to time in discussions around Franklin. What is our population? Why is our school population declining? The US Census stats show that our student population decline is not unique to Franklin.

Stable fertility rates 1990-2019 mask distinct variations by age. Learn more in this America Counts story.

America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers Fertility Rates: Declined for Younger Women, Increased for Older Women Overall fertility trends from 1990 to 2019 were relatively stable, compared to previous decades but varied significantly by age, according to a Census Bureau analysis. The analysis, which looked at Census Bureau and National Center for Health Statistics data, shows fertility rates of women ages 20-24 declined by 43%, while those of women ages 35-39 increased by 67% during the roughly 30-year period. Read More Together, the data paint a compelling picture of how the age at which American women give birth has changed over time. Fertility rates in the United States gradually declined from 1990 to 2019. In 1990, there were about 70.77 births each year for every 1,000 women ages 15-44. By 2019, there were about 58.21 births per 1,000 women in that age group. Continue reading to learn more about: Fertility trends: 1990-2019 Shifting age structures Early 2000s mini birth boom Historical fertility patterns Help us spread the word about America Counts. Share this story on social media or forward it to a friend. Share This You May Be Interested U.S. Births Declined During the Pandemic: Several factors affect the birth rate but the pandemic did have an impact: births declined but began to rise again in March of this year. Learn More About America Counts America Counts tells the stories behind the numbers in a new inviting way. It features stories on various topics such as families, housing, employment, business, education, economy, emergency management, health, population, income and poverty. Contact our Public Information Office for media inquiries or interviews. Don't miss an America Counts story! Subscribe here.

News Literacy Project --> a concise one-pager to better understand and avoid misinformation

"New from @NewsLitProject -- a concise one-pager with key insights, takeaways and reminders to help you and your loved ones better understand and avoid misinformation:

More about misinformation -> https://t.co/8UTBmli8NO 

One pager ->  https://t.co/3FyPn4Wg4a"

News Literacy Project --> a concise one-pager  to better understand and avoid misinformation

"Whoever controls big data technologies will control the resources for development"

"The Most Powerful Data Broker in the World Is Winning the War Against the U.S."

"President Biden came away from his summit with China’s President Xi Jinping on Nov. 15 committed to prosecuting what he called “simple, straightforward competition” with China. Yet Beijing is already beating the United States and its allies in one crucial domain: data.

Data is the oil of the 21st century, the indispensable resource that will fuel artificial-intelligence algorithms, economic strength and national power. The wellspring of this data is all of us: our health records and genetic sequences, our online habits, the supply chain flows of our businesses, the terabytes of imagery guzzled by phones, drones and autonomous cars.

The competition for global influence in the 21st century will require protecting and harnessing this data to achieve commercial, technological and military advantages. So far, China is winning, and the West is barely even engaged."

Continue reading the article online (subscription maybe required)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/opinion/xi-jinping-china-us-data-war.html

Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez; Photographs by Alessandra Benedetti - Corbis, MEHAU KULYK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, and Peter Dazeley via Getty Images

MA city/town COVID-19 daily new cases

This Flourish view of COVID-19 data for the CommonWealth of MA is interactive so you can select and compare one or more communities to the State or each other. I set up a comparison of Franklin to the State level shown in the photo capture shown here.

Thanks to Nathan Ahlgren for this tool.  https://app.flourish.studio/visualisation/4817758/?s=03

MA city/town COVID-19 daily new cases 

60 Minutes "a betrayal of democracy" leads to decision that Franklin Matters Facebook page to go away Dec 1, 2021

60 Minutes (@60Minutes) tweeted at 7:42 PM on Sun, Oct 03, 2021:

"The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world," says former Facebook employee France Haugen. She points to Myanmar, where the military used Facebook to launch a genocide.

Find the full 60 Minutes segment here -> https://t.co/WU4IumjHkO 

Shared from Twitter: https://t.co/cy9Ed9MgbH

“The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world,” says former Facebook employee France Haugen. She points to Myanmar, where the military used Facebook to launch a genocide. https://t.co/WU4IumjHkO pic.twitter.com/cy9Ed9MgbH

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 3, 2021

Note: this is a continuation of the revelations about Facebook since the  Cambridge Analytica scandal. in 2018  I attempted to remove Franklin Matters updates from Facebook at that time and the readers, followers on Facebook created an uproar so I stayed reluctantly.

As a data security and privacy professional I can no longer condone the Facebook business model. Effective Dec 1, 2021 the Franklin Matters Facebook page will go away. You are given notice to find one of the other options to obtain the valuable information shared but not longer directly by me on Facebook.

• You can subscribe via email to the daily update (an easy way)  https://www.franklinmatters.org/p/welcome.html
• You can subscribe via RSS and get everything as it posts (actually the best way)  The 7 best RSS Readers for 2021 (I personally use Feedly)   https://bloggingwizard.com/free-rss-feed-readers/
• You can follow Franklin Matters on Twitter  https://twitter.com/FranklinMatters

Someone can also set up a way to take what I share and share it themselves to Facebook. I have no way to stop that. Folks occasionally do so on their own today.

My personal account will remain on Facebook to maintain my family and network connections. I have limited what is posted and shared in that way and am willing to take the risk to maintain those family connections.

I can no longer take the risk exposing your information in this way. Facebook needs to change and only actions like this will get their attention to do so.

Why Dec 1?

The Franklin election is important and as divisive as Facebook is, for those who depend upon it for info, I will provide some time for them to begin to make their move to one of the alternatives.

If you need or want help setting up email or RSS, I'll offer to schedule a Zoom session (or two) to walk through the process. Let me know if you are interested via email or comment on this post.

Reference points on Facebook data leaks

• Franklin Matters attempt to shut down in 2018 was announced with this post ->  https://www.franklinmatters.org/2018/04/fixing-companys-problems-will-take-years.html
• Data leak reported in April 2021 (actually occurred during 2019) ->  https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/facebook-data-leak-explained/
• Data leak in 2017 ->  https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/28/everything-you-need-to-know-about-facebooks-data-breach-affecting-50m-users/
• Cambridge Analytica aftermath -> https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/25/cambridge-analyticas-former-boss-gets-7-year-ban-on-being-a-business-director/

Mark Hurst's Good Report also has a listing on RSS Readers to add to what I shared here.  https://goodreports.com/post/rss-reader.html

CHIA Report: "‘Frequent flyers’ account for 9.4% of ER visits"

"As state policymakers seek ways to slow the growth in health care costs and improve access to care, a new report by the Center for Health Information and Analysis on emergency department usage highlights some areas policymakers may want to look at.

The report, released Thursday, is the health policy agency’s first statewide report on how emergency rooms are being used. It analyzes data from 2016 through 2019, before the COVID pandemic. CHIA executive director Ray Campbell said it is meant to provide a baseline for government, health care providers, researchers, and insurers to better understand how the emergency room is being used. "

Continue reading the article online
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/the-download/frequent-flyers-account-for-9-4-of-er-visits-2/
 

Direct link to the report ->  https://www.chiamass.gov/assets/docs/r/pubs/2021/CMSR-Emergency-Department-FY2019-Report.pdf

For more about the Center for Health Information and Analysis  visit https://www.chiamass.gov/

CHIA Report:  "‘Frequent flyers’ account for 9.4% of ER visits"

Redistricting Data: What to Expect and When? Written by Dr. Ron Jarmin, U.S. Census Bureau Acting Director Since releasing the apportionment results in April, we've had several teams working hard on the next set of 2020 Census data — the redistricting data. These data play an important role in our democracy and will begin to illuminate the changes to the local and demographic makeup of our nation over the last decade. These data include the first sub-state population counts and demographic characteristics from the census, information that states typically use for redistricting — the process of redrawing electoral district boundaries based on where their populations have increased or decreased.  Although redistricting is a state function, the U.S. Census Bureau performs an important role in the process — providing quality data to the states from the census that states may choose to use in redistricting.  Continue reading the article ->  https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/director/2021/07/redistricting-data.html Video: What is Redistricting? Video link -> https://youtu.be/O0MhAue2Tuk Hear from the Census Bureau's James Whitehorne, chief of the redistricting and voting rights data office, and Nicholas Jones, director and senior advisor of race and ethnicity research and outreach, as they answer common questions about the upcoming 2020 Census data release.  We serve as the nation's leading provider of quality data about its people and economy. The Census Bureau is the federal government's largest statistical agency. We are a scientific organization focused on data. Policy-makers, businesses, and the public use our information to make far-reaching decisions.

CommonWealth Magazine: "State slow to improve criminal justice data collection"

"A sweeping 2018 criminal justice reform law required state officials to create a comprehensive cross-tracking system that would be maintained in an online system. But two and a half years after the law was passed, there has been little evident progress."   https://t.co/dJB7WITWuw

 

"A WELL-KNOWN management maxim warns, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. By that reckoning, those trying to better the state’s criminal justice system are often flying blind.

How long, for example, does the average probationer in Massachusetts stay on probation? Or how many people last year had their probation revoked?

State Probation Commissioner Edward Dolan has no idea. While each probationer has their own physical case file, the Massachusetts Probation Department has no computer-based case management system that would let state officials or researchers track information on an aggregate basis.

“A lot of things we do, we do manually,” Dolan said."

Continue reading the article online

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/criminal-justice/state-slow-to-improve-criminal-justice-data-collection/

New DLS Data Visualization Tool Now Available: Municipal Finance Snapshot

The Division of Local Services has a new tool available for quickly finding key financial and demographic information for all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns. 

The Municipal Finance Snapshot Dashboard uses Tableau visualizations to display data in 14 financial categories including Average Single Family Tax Bill, Local Receipts, New Growth and much more. Selecting a city or town from the map provides a wealth of data about that community. 

Please visit the Municipal Finance Snapshot Dashboard to explore all the information DLS has to offer in a new, easy-to-use way! 

In a trial run of the new snapshot dashboard, I found this Town of Franklin info (image below). Go try for yourself:  

https://edit.mass.gov/info-details/city-and-town-municipal-finance-snapshots

Municipal Finance Snapshot - Town of Franklin Info

"Number of high-risk communities rises to 81"

From CommonWealth Magazine we share an article of interest for Franklin: 

"THE NUMBER of communities considered high-risk for COVID-19 rose from 62 to 81 on Friday, as cases statewide continued to grow rapidly while deaths from the coronavirus grew more slowly.

The numbers followed what has become a predictable pattern during the second surge. Four weeks ago the Baker administration revised the metrics it uses to determine a high-risk, or red, community, causing the number to fall from 121 to 16. But since then the number of red communities has grown rapidly week by week, rising from 16 to 31 to 62 to 81.

Between November 8 and November 21, there were 36,194 new cases of COVID-19. More than half – 55 percent – of those infected were less than 39 years old, while those 70-plus accounted for just 7.6 percent of the cases. Deaths followed the opposite pattern: 83 percent of deaths were among those 70 or older and only 1.4 percent were 39 or less.

Deaths have been growing far more moderately than infections during this second surge. From November 8 to November 21, there were 357 deaths, up from 319 between November 1 and November 14. The deaths in the previous two-week intervals totaled 280 and 241. The Baker administration’s dashboard  for Friday, which covered Wednesday afternoon through Friday morning, reported 4,464 new cases and 29 deaths."

Continue reading online

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/uncategorized/number-of-high-risk-communities-rises-to-81/

The full state report of community data can be found online, the page showing Franklin is in the photo here

https://www.mass.gov/doc/weekly-covid-19-public-health-report-november-27-2020/download

Franklin Community data as of 11/25/20

"Data indicate spread of COVID-19 accelerating" in MA

From CommonWealth Magazine we share an article of interest for Franklin:

"THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 in Massachusetts appears to be accelerating, with the number of communities considered moderate or high-risk jumping by 40 percent and the state as a whole moving into the moderate risk category.

Gov. Charlie Baker released a breakdown by municipality on Tuesday that indicated four of the state’s 351 cities and towns were high risk and 29 were moderate risk. That information was based on the two-week period ending August 5.

On Wednesday evening, the Department of Public Health issued new municipal data based on the two-week period ending August 8. That new breakdown indicates the number of communities at high-risk had jumped from 4 to 11 and the number of communities considered moderate risk increased from 29 to 35. The state as a whole jumped from low risk to moderate risk.

The rankings are important as a barometer for COVID-19 in Massachusetts, but they have also taken on additional importance this week because the Baker administration is urging communities in the low-risk categories to send their children to school for in-person learning this fall. Communities are trying to decide between in-person and remote learning, or some hybrid combination of the two, by this Friday. The fast-changing information is making those decisions even more difficult."

Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required) https://commonwealthmagazine.org/health/data-indicate-spread-of-covid-19-accelerating/?

"Data indicate spread of COVID-19 accelerating" in MA