Rochester Beacon (https://rochesterbeacon.com/category/beaconomics/)
The challenge of Rochester’s public schools has been the “elephant in the room” in every discussion of poverty and economic development for decades. On May 13, the Rochester Beacon Solutions Forum will explore possible solutions to the problem of Rochester’s underperforming schools.
Several of New York State’s smaller metros did quite well in 2018, outperforming the state’s leading large metros.
Neither a falling interest rate yield curve nor an inversion is destiny. Still, just like the rest of the economy, Rochester needs to pay attention to national indicators.
Upstate rates of opioid deaths far exceed the rates experienced in New York City’s largest boroughs. The growth in the rate of deaths due to opioid overdoses is terrifying.
The official poverty threshold is equal to three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, adjusted for family size. Is it an adequate measure?
Darrell Huff’s “How to Lie with Statistics” was an instant classic following its publication in 1954. Do widely quoted figures on K-12 education tell the whole story?
Though Amazon says publicly that the Long Island City site for “HQ2½”—half of Amazon’s proposed second headquarters—was not determined by state incentives, would Long Island City have won its bid without them?
The Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson began a sea change in health care finance. The public health insurance share has risen from 5 percent in 1965 to 41 percent today.
The unemployment rate in the Rochester metro fell to 4 percent in September, half the rate at the peak of the recession in 2009, and below pre-recession levels. Is this good news?
The Current Population Survey conducted by the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Labor shows unionization at 29 percent nationally and 36 percent in New York State as of 1964. By 2017, the national average had fallen to 11 percent and New York State to 24 percent.
