D’Vera Cohn

This posting summarizes a new Pew Hispanic Center report about Hispanics in the 60 metropolitan areas with the largest Latino populations. The report includes analysis, comparison and rankings of these areas on key counts and characteristics. There also are statistical profiles of the 60 areas and two interactive maps.

The Pew Research Center has published a number of recent reports that are relevant to the new Census Bureau numbers for the 2011 poverty rate, median household income and people without health insurance. This posting lists and links to reports about Americans' attitudes toward their own economic circumstances and views on helping the poor, as well as analysis and explanation about poverty and economic well-being.

This posting describes and links to a new report, "The Lost Decade of the Middle Class," that combines income data from the Census Bureau, wealth data from the Survey of Consumer Finances and findings from a new survey to paint a portrait of diminished finances and muted hopes.

This posting includes links to newly released Census Bureau research on how Americans should be asked about their race and ethnicity. It links to a previous posting that explains the background behind this ground-breaking research.

The race and Hispanic origin categories on the 2010 Census form (and many other government forms) do not always match people's self-identification, and this is especially true for Hispanics. The Census Bureau will present results of research on alternative questionnaire designs and wording that attempts to address the issue.

A new Pew Research Center report shows that the share of upper-income households living in neighborhoods that are mainly upper income has risen from 1980 to 2010, as has the share of lower-income households living in neighborhoods where most other households are lower income. Income segregation also has grown in most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.

The nation’s racial and ethnic minority groups—especially Hispanics—are growing more rapidly than the non-Hispanic white population, fueled by both immigration and births.

At the Population Association of America’s annual conference in San Francisco this week, papers on the recession’s impact on families, wealth, children, young adults, older Americans and other realms of life will be presented in at least 10 of the 200-plus sessions. Much of the research is preliminary, but it raises intriguing questions. One paper tries to assess whether the poor economy has affected divorce rates.

The Population Association of America's annual conference this week includes posters and papers by Pew Research Center authors. The posting includes links to their work.

Starting in 2013, the Census Bureau would like all of the more than 3 million households that receive its American Community Survey to be pushed to respond online, instead of mailing back the traditional paper questionnaire. The bureau recently released results of a test of online response that had some encouraging results.