Once a year the Bureau of Labor Statistics revises the payroll data series from the monthly Establishment Survey to reflect added data and – in the case of seasonally adjusted data – adjusted seasonal factors. The table below shows the revised month-by-month job growth and job loss in the United States in 2010 (seasonally adjusted). The second column shows the previously reported monthly change, the second column the revised monthly change and the third column the difference between the the two. All numbers in thousand. The total payroll is about 130 million (closing in on 131 million) so the monthly changes are quite small by comparison.

Paul Levy, who is no longer running a hospital, fears hospitals are in a private-equity investment bubble not unlike those fueled the likes of Enron and WorldCom.

I think he’s right. A couple of years ago I wrote the following:

Some of the boom in hospital employment over the last few years is quite frankly just another aspect of the debt boom that temporarily lifted the rest of the economy before painfully imploding. At this point nurses are merely facing the end of job growth, soon they’ll have to cope with outright job losses. It’s likely to get very ugly. An administrator recently explained to me his hospital’s revenue plan, which is more like a revenue hope. It’s going to get ugly in the health-care industry.

It’s quite possible that the hospital bubble has been further inflated over the past couple of years by the fiscal and monetary efforts to prop up the economy after the implosion of the housing bubble, just like the housing bubble was wildly inflated by policies aimed at staving off a recession after the end of the dotcom bubble and the 9/11 attacks.

On December 30, 2010, the Washington Post published an article on the job market that veterans of recent wars are facing (Gulf War 2 is apparently the Federal name for the Post-9/11 wars). It’s a good article that gives a glimpse into the difficulties (and also successes) of young veterans who’ve left the service.

The unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans was 10 percent in November, compared with 9.1 percent for non-veterans, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment rates for combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been higher than the overall rate since at least 2005, according to the bureau.

I’m sure many returning veterans are having a hard time finding jobs but one shouldn’t paint an overly bleak picture. Looking at wider set of data than simply the unemployment rate for non-veterans and Gulf War 2 veterans suggest that the latter are in a good deal better shape in the labor market than the Washington Post article suggests.

The Gulf War 2 veterans differ from the rest of the labor pool in at least two major ways: They are far more likely to be men (about 85%) and they also skew younger (the veterans interviewed in the article are 22 to 24 years old). This recession has been much harder on men than on women and young men have much higher unemployment rates than older workers. The table below shows the unemployment rate for male Gulf War 2 veterans, for male non-veterans of all ages, for men 20-24 years old (regardless of veteran status) and for men 25-34 years old (regardless of veteran status). The last row shows the unemployment rate for all workers (men and women, regardless of veterans staus and age).

Unemployment rates

As you can see, the Gulf War-era 2 veterans are doing relatively well in an economy that isn’t particularly favorable for men, and in particular young men.

Also, the population of Gulf War 2 veterans in the labor force is growing quickly, so even though the number of employed male Gulf War 2 veterans grew by about 30,000 a month their unemployment rate remained stuck at 10.4% in September, October and November of 2010.

Massachusetts population in 2010: 6,547,629 according to the United States Census Bureau’s 2010 Census (population count) That’s 3.1% more than in 2000.

The United States Census Bureau released population figures for the United States and the 50 states and District of Columbia yesterday. The table below shows how state populations in the 2010 census population count differ from the 2009 population estimates. A handful of states had population estimates that exceeded the 2009 population estimate.

Same table but ordered by 2010 population size:

The table below shows the computed poverty rate for the school-aged population in school districts in Massachusetts 2007 through 2009. The districts are listed in alphabetical order. The list does not include Lee/Berkshire Hills in Farmington River Regional which did not report school-aged population below the poverty line in 2007 and 2008.

Last night IKEA in Stoughton, Massachusetts, served a julbord – i.e., a traditional Swedish Christmas buffet. I believe it was the first one the store has ever served. Maybe it’s also the last. It was a debacle.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying. The cafeteria-style restaurant was nicely decorated for the occasion and the store had brought in not only a Lucia-troupe but also live music. The problem was quite simply that the store had sold far too many tickets for the event. My wife and I arrived at about 20 minutes after the doors had opened and the place had already degenerated into near chaos. Every single seat was taken and long lines snaked through the restaurant to the buffet tables. And then they ran out of food. And plates. And the whole thing turned into a flash-mob does Lord of the Flies. Instead of trying to get a handle on the situation the staff kept selling tickets to the very long line of non-ticket holders waiting for a piece of prinskorv and sillsallad, which signalled to the patrons already in the restaurant that there was no relief in sight, all this while literally besieged kitchen workers served half-frozen meatballs and unthawed bread as fast as they could.

The chaos was disappointing and surprising given how well the same store has thrown quite enjoyable crayfish parties in the same space for several years in a row. Now, a crayfish party is quite a bit easier to pull off logistically because it requires much fewer dishes – really only crayfish, bread, cheese and boiled potato – but that’s why it’s all the more important to limit how many people you admit.

It was poor value and I’m going to exact powerful revenge by boycotting the store’s ethnic food market, at least until the next time I go there.

The following table shows the poverty rate for student-aged population in Massachusetts in 2009.

Student poverty rate by school district for all states.

The table below shows the poverty rate by county in Massachusetts in 2009 for the entire population (the second column) as well as for the population under 18 (the third column). The last column shows the median household income. Poverty rates are set as a percentage of the the population below a certain income household income level. Because of differences in household composition the poverty rate doesn’t necessarily fluctuate with household income. For example, Suffolk county – where Boston is – has a poverty level almost 50% higher than Franklin’s even though Suffolk has a median household income almost 20% higher than Franklin’s. Single-mom family households are particulalry likely to be below the poverty line.