How Regressive Local Taxes Are Rewarding the Rich
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy | READ STORY

The newest edition of Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) looked at sales and excise taxes, property taxes and income taxes across all 50 states, and found that, on average, the poorest 20 percent of households pay more than double (10.9 percent) the effective tax rate paid by the top 1 percent (5.4 percent).

Low Income Students Now a Majority in the Nation's Public Schools
Southern Education Foundation | READ STORY

Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation's public schools, according to this research bulletin. The latest data collected from the states by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), show that 51 percent of the students across the nation's public schools were low income in 2013.

Crime is down in the US. But which states benefited the most?
Motovo Real Estate Blog | READ STORY

The data-focused Motovo Real Estate Blog compiled an animated map using FBI data to look at how every state's overall crime rate compared to the national average each year. Crime rates dropped across the US by roughly 22 percent between 2004 and 2013, but the large decline didn't apply evenly to each state.

Wealth: Having it All and Wanting More
Oxfam | READ STORY

According to a recent report, Global wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated among a small wealthy elite. Since 2010, the richest 1% of adults in the world have been increasing their share of total global wealth. In 2014, the richest 1% of people in the world owned 48% of global wealth, leaving just 52% to be shared between the other 99% of adults on the planet. If this trend continues of an increasing wealth share to the richest, the top 1% will have more wealth than the remaining 99% of people in just two years.

Solar Energy on the Rise
Deutsche Welle | READ STORY

Global investment in solar energy is on the rise. In 2014, sales of solar panels increased by 20 percent. As the cost of solar energy production continues to fall, the market is experiencing something of a boom. In many parts of the world, it has become cheaper to produce solar power than diesel oil, gas, coal or nuclear energy.

The #1 reason people die early, in each country
Lancet | READ STORY

Data from the recently published Global Burden of Disease study has been compiled and used to show the leading cause of lost years of life by country.

Global Metro Monitor Map
Brookings | READ STORY

With only 20 percent of the population, the world's 300 largest metropolitan economies accounted for nearly half of global output in 2014. This interactive map and report compare growth patterns in the world's 300 largest metro economies on two key economic indicators-annualized growth rate of real GDP per capita and annualized growth rate of employment.