Ask the Expert: Classifying Race and Ethnicity – Pew Research Center.

From Appearance to Identity: How Census Data Collection Changed Race in America » Sociological Images.

Public-sector job losses: An unprecedented drag on the recovery | Economic Policy Institute.

This page presents a brief critique and fully-working redesign of a recent New York Times interactive graphic. The redesign emphasizes showing and comparing the data, and exploring the data through simple, powerful interactions.

via How Many Households.

Light, author of “The True Size of Government” and  ”A Government Ill Executed: The Decline of the Federal Service and How to Reverse It,” made many interesting points and predictions…

via Challenging times – Fedline – The Federal Times Blog – federal news, government operations, agency management, pay & benefits.

…paraphrase your sources while you take notes, not later.

… paraphrasing is often better than copying. First, it’s faster, which is especially crucial if you’re in the archives. Second, it forces you to assimilate ideas. Copying verbatim is really a way of being lazy by pushing off the hard work of thinking, but paraphrasing while taking notes lets you mix your ideas with the sources you’re working from. You end up with a record not just of the source but of why it is important to your research. And third, by paraphrasing while taking notes, you’ve already done some of the work towards producing a draft.

via Take Better Notes by Paraphrasing – ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

One important factor is the role of public policy. In 1965, the U.S. passed legislation establishing Medicare, which greatly increased access to medical care for the elderly regardless of income. Medical costs had previously been a major drain on savings; a significant illness could quickly eliminate a lifetime’s savings. Medicare reduced the risk posed by medical expenses and the percent of income spent on health care among the elderly.

via Economic Well-Being among Older Americans » Sociological Images.

Many introverts feel there’s something wrong with them, and try to pass as extroverts. But whenever you try to pass as something you’re not, you lose a part of yourself along the way. You especially lose a sense of how to spend your time. Introverts are constantly going to parties and such when they’d really prefer to be home reading, studying, inventing, meditating, designing, thinking, cooking…or any number of other quiet and worthwhile activities.

According to the latest research, one third to one half of us are introverts – that’s one out of every two or three people you know. But you’d never guess that, right? That’s because introverts learn from an early age to act like pretend-extroverts.

via The Power of Introverts: A Manifesto for Quiet Brilliance | Extroversion & introversion | Personality, Creativity & Productivity | LiveScience.

Differences in wages between federal employees and similar private-sector employees in the 2005-2010 period varied widely depending on the employees’ level of education.

Federal civilian workers with no more than a high school education earned about 21 percent more, on average, than similar workers in the private sector.

Workers whose highest level of education was a bachelor’s degree earned roughly the same hourly wages, on average, in both the federal government and the private sector.

Federal workers with a professional degree or doctorate earned about 23 percent less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts.

Overall, the federal government paid 2 percent more in total wages than it would have if average wages had been comparable with those in the private sector, after accounting for certain observable characteristics of workers.

via Congressional Budget Office – Comparing the Compensation of Federal and Private-Sector Employees.

Why does it take so much input from so many sources for the company to build perfect playlists?

via How Computers, Curators, And Users Create Pandora’s Playlists | Fast Company.