See how you do on these seven questions (the answers are further down in this page).
1. How many metropolitan areas of over 1 million people did Donald Trump win in the recent Presidential Election?
[ ] Two [ ] Six [ ] Nine [ ] Seventeen
2. Which is the most common cause of death among people serving in the active US Military?
[ ] Hostile Action [ ] Accidents [ ] Illness and Disease [ ] Suicide
3. English and Spanish are the most common languages spoken at home in the US. What is the third most common language?
[ ] French [ ] Tagalog [ ] Hindi [ ] Chinese
4. Based on Return on Assets, a good measure of the fundamental profitability of a company, which of these companies is more profitable than highly profitable Apple?
[ ] Alphabet (Google) [ ] Intel [ ] TJX (TJ Maxx, Marshall’s) [ ] Exxon Mobil
5. 85.6% of the current residents of the US were born in the state they live in now. 14.4% were born outside the state or outside the United States. Which state had the lowest percentage of current residents born in the state?
[ ] Florida [ ] Arizona [ ] Nevada [ ] California
6. In 2014, the latest year for which data is available, the top 6% of US Income Earners paid what percent of the total Federal Personal Income Tax?
[ ] 3% [ ] 6% [ ] 27% [ ] 58%
7. In 2015, what percent of all US workers who are paid by the hour were paid at or below the federal minimum wage?
[ ] 3% [ ] 12% [ ] 29% [ ] 62%
Anyone who knows me knows I am an information and data junkie.
I am often surprised by how many people, including dear friends, talk on and on about a given subject, often politics and the economy, without knowing the facts. With the power of the Internet, facts are much easier to find than ever before. Sure, there is a lot of nonsense out there, but there are also reliable sources, such as federal government statistical databases.
In this context, I was delighted that my friends at Austin’s data.world startup hired me as a consultant to add to their list of thousands of datasets. So far, I have added 50 datasets, many of which relate to the most important and interesting aspects of society. My datasets can be found here. I urge all of my readers to join data.world, where you can download all the datasets, you can play with them yourself, you can comment on them, and you can add your own. If you follow me, you will be alerted whenever I add a new dataset. Membership is free.
My datasets are very diverse. In addition to the topics listed in this note, they include:
- Data on weather and climate
- Crime rates by city
- Which states are the most and least generous to their lottery players
- The highest paid employees of the state of Texas
- Spending on education by the states
- The national toy hall of fame
- Great funk albums
- The value of old cars
- Which cities people migrate to
- Figuring your life expectancy by your age
- The federal deficit
- Causes of death in the US
- Religion by county
- International comparisons from the World Bank
- Plenty of data on the history of retailing.
- And many others!
Here are the answers to the seven questions, along with links for those are curious and want to think about the data for themselves, which I strongly advocate you do!
Presidential Election
Seventeen metro areas of over 1 million people voted for Trump. A more complete analysis can be found here:
And the data is here:
https://data.world/garyhoov/2016-pres-election-by-county
Military Deaths
51% of all active military deaths since 1980 have been from accidents. See:
https://data.world/garyhoov/military-deaths-by-cause
Languages Spoken in the US
2.9 million speak one form or another of Chinese at home.
https://data.world/garyhoov/us-language-spoken-at-home
Corporate Profits
In 2015, Apple’s 18.4% return on assets was about triple the average for big companies, and ranked 3rd among those companies doing over $30 billion in annual revenue. Biotech firm Gilead Sciences earned 34.9% and TJX earned 19.8%.
https://data.world/garyhoov/giant-corporations-profits
More on ExxonMobil’s profitability:
https://data.world/garyhoov/exxonmobil-profitability
More on defining profitability:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-you-really-know-what-means-profitable-gary-hoover
US Mobility
Only 25.8% of the people of Nevada were born in Nevada. Next lowest are the District of Columbia at 35.8%, Florida at 35.9%, and Arizona at 39.2%. At the other extreme, 78.3% of Louisiana residents were born there, and 91.9% of Puerto Rico’s residents were born there.
https://data.world/garyhoov/us-internal-lifetime-mobility
Income Taxes
The top 6.4% of US Income Tax filers, those reporting earnings of over $200,000, paid 58.2% of US personal income taxes in 2014.
https://data.world/garyhoov/individual-income-tax-2014
Minimum Wage
In 2015, 3.3% of hourly workers were paid at or below the federal minimum wage.
https://data.world/garyhoov/individual-income-tax-2014
I would love to hear your thoughts and comments here on LinkedIn.
Gary Hoover
