In late spurt of activity, Congress avoids ‘least productive’ title
An unusually active lame duck session enabled the 113th Congress to avoid its predecessor’s record for legislative unproductivity.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Drew DeSilver
Senior Writer/Editor
Drew DeSilver is a senior writer at Pew Research Center.
Publications
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Do lower gasoline prices make for confident consumers?
Lower gas prices tend to improve consumer sentiment, but the actual impact on the overall economy probably is small.
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Retailers still rely on holiday sales, but not quite as much as they used to
Sales at many retailers spike during the year-end holiday season, but holiday sales overall are a bit less significant than they were two decades ago.
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For retailers, the holidays mean a hiring binge – and then a purge
Retail is one of the more seasonally variable sectors of the U.S. economy, but much of the holiday hiring surge is concentrated in just a handful of categories.
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How productive are lame duck Congresses?
Lame duck congressional sessions have become more common in recent years, but their actual legislative productivity has varied considerably.
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Facing challenges, pollsters broaden experiments with new methodologies
Pew Research Center is working to broaden experiments, aimed both at dealing with the problems confronting traditional probability-based polls and taking advantage of opportunities provided by new technologies.
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Executive actions on immigration have long history
President Obama’s executive action to protect millions of unauthorized immigrants from deportation is an act that both follows and departs from precedents set by his predecessors.
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Where near-minimum-wage workers work, and how much they make
The restaurant and food service industry is the single biggest employer of near-minimum workers, employing 3.75 million near-minimum workers, about 18% of the total.
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More and more Americans are outside the labor force entirely. Who are they?
More than 92 million Americans last month were considered outside the labor force entirely. While most of them are older, the biggest increase has been among teens and young adults.
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Making more than minimum wage, but less than $10.10 an hour
Last year an estimated 20.6 million people — 30% of all hourly, non-self-employed workers aged 18 and older in the U.S. — earned above the applicable minimum wage in their state but less than the proposed $10.10/hour minimum.
