Now you know

When I’m working on something and get an idea for a visualization, when I’m following the news and realize I have something empirical and timely to offer, when I want to make a pedagogical point about data or methods or demography and inequality — this is when I generate Now You Know Bluesky skeets or Mastodon toots. Sometimes they resonate and are popular, sometimes they are nichey or just fall flat. But the great thing about social media is I get to find out what works and what doesn’t, for whom and why — quickly. It’s great feedback about both the substantive work I do and the method and media of presentation.

I put some of the popular or interesting ones on this page. You can follow the links to see the original tweets/toots, replies and comments, and in some cases links to data and code.

Relative income of full-time US workers, 1980-2022 (replication an extension of a New York Times figure) [post]

US marriage across major race/ethnic group lines, 2008-2021. [toot]

Now you know: Distribution of White, Hispanic, and Black population in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Now you know: Gender composition of PhD degree earners in 2021: Selected fields with >500 degrees. [Toot]

Now you know: The rise and fall of teen marriage in the US, by state. In 1960, 47% of US women ages 19-20 had been married. By 2020 it was 4%. Remember the good old days. [Tweet]

Now you know: How total fertility rate is calculated, and how it fell from 2.09 to 1.64 in the US over 12 years. [Tweet]

Now you know: Ratio of births to deaths: US states, 2020. [Tweet]

Now you know: COVID-19 death rate in 2020 versus 2021: US Counties, by 2020 election result. [Tweet]

Now you know: For each 10 points of Trump 2020 vote share, a county's percent fully-vaccinated is predicted to be 4.5% lower. [Tweet]

Now you know: What an extremely strong causal relationship looks like in social science: Education and earnings for full-time workers ages 25-34 (R2=.16, unless you draw the line through the means, then it's .97) [Tweet]