Jobs are a hot topic of conversation these days: There aren’t enough of them, there aren’t enough good ones, there aren’t enough that pay a living wage.

As the Director of Research & Planning at United Way, I'm often asked for data around population breakouts, poverty, veterans, disability, and income. Guess where the data usually comes from?

A Harvard economist asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth was distributed in the United States. This is what he found.

The national unemployment report just came out and with it some good news: Unemployment dropped from 7.9% in January to 7.7% in February (seasonally adjusted). A year ago (February 2012) the unemployment rate stood at 8.3%.

Poetry can be a powerful way to convey emotions as well as experience. I’m currently reading The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West and ran across this poem, "Being Poor."

The number of Minnesota children living in poverty has increased 60% since 2000, and now stands at nearly 200,000. Children are more likely to live in poverty than any other age group, and the younger the child, the higher the poverty rate.

Our upcoming forum, Investment to Impact, will focus on measuring the impact of human service sector work in our community as well as the innovative work already taking place to clearly connect investment to outcomes.

The most recent job vacancy survey is out and it has some good news: Not unexpectedly, the job vacancy rate has improved, with statewide vacancies up 15.1% compared to a year ago.

The fourth annual survey of United Way funded agencies has been conducted and the results are now available. There was a significant jump in the proportion of agencies reporting an increase in the number of homeless youth they are seeing.

In early 2012, United Way released the Faces of Poverty report. From this seventy-page report, we are publishing four briefs and the second poverty brief is now out. While the first brief focused on poverty and unemployment, this second brief focuses on chronic or long-term poverty.

Last month, Greater Twin Cities United Way published the Faces of Poverty 2012 report—an in-depth look at poverty both locally and nationally. We’re now releasing the first of four briefs based on the report. This first brief focuses on unemployment and situational poverty.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development has issued its Job Vacancy report for the fourth quarter of 2011, and it contains some good news.

We’ve just completed a major report on poverty. Working on it was unbelievably informative—and sobering. I thought I knew a lot about poverty, but as with most issues, there’s always more to learn.

I was pleased to find The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by Jeffrey D. Sachs at Sixth Chamber Books (a St. Paul gem) a couple of weeks ago. Sachs usually takes a more global look at things (most particularly global poverty) and I was glad to see him focusing specifically on the States.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) has released the findings of the most recent job vacancy survey (conducted twice a year) and the news is decidedly mixed. First the good news: There are now 3.6 unemployed workers in the state of Minnesota for each job vacancy—a significant improvement over the 4.8 unemployed people one year ago.

Until a few days ago, the potential shutdown of the state government was only on the fringe of my radar. But in the space of 12 hours, the specter of shutdown crossed my path three times.

There’s no denying the value of higher education. Recent unemployment statistics show a very clear, very linear relationship between level of education and unemployment: The lower the level of education, the higher the level of unemployment.

Nonprofit agencies continue to feel the impact of the recession, nearly two years after its end. According to Greater Twin Cities United Way’s most recent agency survey, more than half of our partner agencies (59%) saw more clients in 2010 than they did in 2009, the official end of the Great Recession.

I finally put my taxes in the mail a few days ago. It’s always a feeling of accomplishment to sign, staple, and mail them. Everyone of course has their priorities, but for my dollar, I’m glad to support any number of things that I couldn’t figure out how to pay for on my own in any kind of economical or sustainable manner. Here is a starter list of the things that I’m really glad my taxes pay for.

Americans’ consensus about the ideal distribution of wealth within the United States dwarfs their disagreements across gender, political orientation, and income.

What a concept! An itemized federal tax receipt: I pay my taxes, and I get a receipt detailing exactly where they all went.  

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) has just released the findings of its 4^th quarter (2010) Job Vacancy Survey. There is good news!

Recent reports about long-term unemployment, foreclosures, job losses and hunger show that we're not out of the woods yet.

As temporary workers make up an increasingly larger share of our workforce and hold positions at companies for longer periods of time—sometimes for years, I got to wondering what it’s like to be a temp worker.