PolicyMap Updates Our Economy Menu

At PolicyMap we think data should be fun. So we organize our menus to allow you to browse and find the data you need. And, at the same time, to discover a few new things about the places you care about.

We’ve heard from users over time that our economy data has been particularly difficult to navigate, so we decided it was high-time we think through how best to present our data on jobs, industries, workforce, and employment. Read on to learn a bit more about what you can find in PolicyMap’s updated Economy menu.

Jobs and Industries: Many people come to PolicyMap for the most granular neighborhood-level data available. Our most local data is the number of jobs by industry sector from the Census’ Local Employment Dynamics (LED). An industry sector represents a category of employment such Retail or Manufacturing. If
you’re looking for data about a more specific industry subsector, such as food and beverage retailers or paper manufacturers, you can find ZIP code level data from the Census’ County Business Patterns.
For our users interested in the broader economy, we have the authoritative jobs and wages data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). Although we are able to offer detailed jobs data at the local level, you can only get county and metro area wage data.

Workforce Characteristics: PolicyMap offers detailed local data about the workers that live in a place and the workers who work in a place. Perhaps you’re interested in what percent of residents in a neighborhood work in educational services, or the educational attainment of the local workforce. You can find workforce demographics, earnings, and educational attainment data about the residents of an area. Or, you can find out about the people who are employed within that community. This is all data from LED. Stay tuned for some exciting new indicators here about people working more than one job and about local hiring!

Small Business and Startups: One of the most common data requests we have is for startups and small businesses. On PolicyMap you can find local data on the number and percent of employees working for small businesses and for startups from LED. You can also find the locations of Small Business Association’s Small Business Development Centers and business incubators supported by the National Business Incubation Association.

Employment: PolicyMap has unemployment, employment and labor force participation data the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).  It’s county and metro data, but it’s updated every month.

Business Vacancy: PolicyMap has postal vacancy data from Valassis Lists, a direct mail company that processes direct feeds from the US Postal Service databases. This data is updated quarterly to provide the most up-to-date data available.

Industry Highlights: For now the only industry we offer additional data on is the Energy industry. If you have other industries you’re particularly interested in and think we should expand, let us know!