RELIGION USA

U.S. RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008

http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf

An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details the religious affiliation of the American public and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.

The Landscape Survey confirms that the United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country; the number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%.

RELIGION AND SECULARISM: THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, December 3, 2007

http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=161

Given the recent popularity of several high-profile books on atheism, the Pew Forum invited Wilfred McClay, a distinguished professor of intellectual history, to speak on the historical relationship between religion and secularism in America. McClay argued for a distinction between two types of secularism.


OVERVIEW: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND EVOLUTION
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, February 4, 2009
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=395
Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Americans are still fighting over evolution. If anything, the controversy has recently grown in both size and intensity. In the last five years alone, for example, debates over how evolution should be taught in public schools have been heard in school boards, town councils and legislatures in more than half the states.


A RELIGIOUS PORTRAIT OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, January 30, 2009
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=389
Compared with other racial and ethnic groups, African-Americans are among the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation, with fully 87% of African-Americans describing themselves as belonging to one religious group or another, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Latinos also report affiliating with a religion at a similarly high rate of 85%; among the public overall, 83% are affiliated with a religion.

FAITH ON THE HILL: THE RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, December 19, 2008
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=379
Members of Congress are often accused of being out of touch with average citizens, but an examination of the religious affiliations of U.S. senators and representatives shows that, on one very basic level, Congress looks much like the rest of the country. Although a majority of the members of the new, 111th Congress, which will be sworn in on Jan. 6, are Protestants, Congress, like the nation as a whole, is much more religiously diverse than it was 50 years ago. Religious Landscape Survey of over 35,000 American adults finds that some smaller religious groups, notably Catholics, Jews and Mormons, are better represented in Congress than they are in the population as a whole. However, certain other smaller religious groups, including Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus, still are somewhat underrepresented in Congress relative to their share of the U.S. population.

AMERICAN RELIGIOUS IDENTIFICATION SURVEY 2008

Trinity College, March 2009

http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/

The American population self-identifies as predominantly Christian but Americans are slowly becoming less Christian. The U. S. population continues to show signs of becoming less religious, with one out of every five Americans failing to indicate a religious identity in 2008.

IMMIGRANTS

IMMIGRANTS AND THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS
Migration Policy Institute, January 2009
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/lmi_recessionJan09.pdf
As the nation sinks into a recession that may be the worst since the Great Depression, the economic crisis raises fundamental questions about future immigration flows to and from the United States and how current and prospective immigrants will fare.

IMPENDING DEADLINES ON A NUMBER OF IMMIGRATION DECISIONS AWAIT OBAMA
Migration Policy Institute, January 15, 2009
http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?id=717
The new administration will likely face pressure from immigrant advocates, labor organizations, and business groups — many of whom are hoping for a dramatic change in immigration policy under the new Obama presidency, with or without legislative action in Congress.


BUILDING TOMORROW’S WORKFORCE: PROMOTING THE EDUCATION AND ADVANCEMENT OF HISPANIC IMMIGRANT WORKERS IN AMERICA
Excelencia in Education, January 21, 2009
http://www.edexcelencia.org/pdf/Building%20Tomorrow's%20Workforce%20full%20report.pdf
Strategic partnerships between industry and community colleges that engage younger Hispanic immigrants can boost the economy by training an important proportion of U.S. workers for future jobs. The report looks at six innovative partnerships throughout the country.

AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES
The Migration Policy Institute, February 2009
http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?ID=719

The number of African immigrants in the United States grew 40-fold between 1960 and 2007, from 35,355 to 1.4 million. Most of this growth has taken place since 1990.
Compared to other immigrants, the African born tend to be highly educated and speak English well. However, they are also more likely not to be naturalized US citizens than other immigrants.

AFRICA AMERICANS

AFRICA AMERICANS
February 2009
All previous web alerts can be found at:
http://france.usembassy.gov/politics-alert.html


AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH
Library of Congress, February 2009
http://www.loc.gov/law/help/commemorative-observations/african-american.php
National African American History Month had its origins in 1915 when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. This organization is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (“ASALH”). Through this organization Dr. Woodson initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926. Dr. Woodson selected the week in February that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two key figures in the history of African Americans.

FREE AT LAST: THE U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs, January 2009
http://www.america.gov/publications/books-content/free-at-last.html
This publication recounts how African-American slaves and their descendants struggled to win — both in law and in practice — the civil rights enjoyed by other Americans. It is a story of dignified persistence and struggle, a story that produced great heroes and heroines, and one that ultimately succeeded by forcing Americans to confront squarely the shameful gap between their universal principles of equality and justice and the inequality, injustice, and oppression faced by millions of their fellow citizens


ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A LEGACY OF FREEDOM

U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs, 2008
http://www.america.gov/publications/books/lincoln.html
The year 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. president often considered the greatest of this country’s leaders. Americans’ reverence for Lincoln began with his tragic death by assassination in 1865, at the end of a brutal civil war in which 623,000 men died, the American Union withstood its greatest test, and slavery was banished. And his hallowed place in the iconography of America continues.

AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES
The Migration Policy Institute, February 2009
http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?ID=719
The number of African immigrants in the United States grew 40-fold between 1960 and 2007, from 35,355 to 1.4 million. Most of this growth has taken place since 1990.
Compared to other immigrants, the African born tend to be highly educated and speak English well. However, they are also more likely not to be naturalized US citizens than other immigrants.

A RELIGIOUS PORTRAIT OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, January 30, 2009
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=389
Compared with other racial and ethnic groups, African-Americans are among the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation, with fully 87% of African-Americans describing themselves as belonging to one religious group or another, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Latinos also report affiliating with a religion at a similarly high rate of 85%; among the public overall, 83% are affiliated with a religion.

EDUCATION USA

EDUCATION February 2009



EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT IN THE UNITED STATES: 2007
U.S. Bureau of the Census, January 2009
http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p20-560.pdf
This report provides estimates of educational attainment in the United States, including comparisons by demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin. Information about educational attainment among the native-born and foreign-born populations is included.


FROM QUALIFICATIONS TO RESULTS: PROMOTING TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS THROUGH FEDERAL POLICY
Center for American Progress, January 28, 2009
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/01/pdf/het.pdf
This paper briefly explains why a focus on effectiveness is needed and how it might work, and it describes current federal policy related to teacher quality. It then provides some new ideas about how federal policy can stimulate change at the state and local level to help states and districts move from a qualifications focus to an effectiveness focus.

MAPPING NEW DIRECTIONS: HIGHER EDUCATION FOR OLDER ADULTS
American Council on Education, January 16, 2009
http://www.acenet.edu/Content/NavigationMenu/ProgramsServices/CLLL/Reinvesting/MapDirections.pdf
Despite successful efforts by some colleges and universities to create lifelong learning programs for adults aged 55 and older, many institutions remain stuck in outmoded, one-dimensional views of this population, according to the report. It offers recommendations to colleges and universities for broadening the participation of older adults who will comprise one-third of the nation’s overall population by 2030.

TRENDS IN COLLEGE SPENDING: WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM? WHERE DOES IT GO?
Delta Cost Project, January 16, 2009
http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/trends_in_spending-report.pdf
The report examines revenue and expenditure data for nearly 2,000 public and private non-profit colleges and universities, representing more than 75 percent of higher education enrollment, and analyzes recent trends, focusing on the period from 2002 to 2006. It is the most up-to-date and comprehensive assessment of higher education finance in the nation.

ARTS & THE ECONOMY: USING ARTS AND CULTURE TO STIMULATE STATE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
National Governors Association, January 15, 2009
http://www.nga.org/Files/pdf/0901ARTSANDECONOMY.PDF
Fostering the arts and culture sector has played a vital role in state economic development, according to the report. Arts and culture-related industries, collectively known as “creative industries,” provide direct economic benefits to states and communities by creating jobs, attracting new investments, generating tax revenues and stimulating tourism and consumer purchases.

HEALTH USA

Source: http://france.usembassy.gov

HEALTH ISSUES

Enabling Healthcare Reform Using Information Technology: Recommendations for the Obama Administration and 111th Congress
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society - December 17, 2008 – 45 pages http://www.himss.org/2009calltoaction/HIMSSCallToActionDec2008.pdf
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) shows a detailed report outlining specific priorities and recommendations for the Obama Administration and 111th Congress to harness Information Technology’s power to reform healthcare and stimulate the U.S. economy.

The Fallacy of Health Care Reform as Economic Stimulus
Robert Book Heritage Foundation – WebMemo - January 16, 2009
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2231.cfm
“After spending decades trying to reduce health care costs, some commentators and policymakers now argue that health care costs should be increased to stimulate the economy. At the crux of the argument are the notions that increasing spending on health care will create jobs that can be filled by those losing jobs in other areas of the economy--and that implementing long-proposed reforms (such as an increased emphasis on primary care and large-scale deployment of health IT) will reduce health care costs. These two arguments are fundamentally at odds with each other.”

Healthcare Costs and U.S. Competitiveness
Lee Hudson Teslik and Toni Johnson Council on Foreign Relations - Backgrounder – December 30, 2008
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13325/healthcare_costs_and_us_competitiveness.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fby_type%2Fbackgrounder
“Factoring in costs borne by government, the private sector, and individuals, the United States spends over $1.9 trillion annually on healthcare expenses, more than any other industrialized country… These costs prompt fears that an increasing number of U.S. businesses will outsource jobs overseas or offshore business operations completely. U.S. economic woes have heightened the burden of healthcare costs both on individuals and businesses, and the incoming Obama administration says it plans to provide funding for healthcare as part of a fiscal stimulus package aimed at boosting the U.S. economy. Yet despite the economic downturn, experts see a consensus emerging that healthcare reform should move forward.”

Cost Sharing for Health Care: France, Germany, and Switzerland
Kaiser Family Foundation - January 12, 2009 – 25 pages http://kff.org/insurance/upload/7852.pdf
As policymakers in the United States weigh options for reform to the nation’s health care system, the level of cost sharing that consumers face when they receive services covered by their health plans is a major consideration, especially for those with serious health conditions. The brief examines how three European countries, France, Germany, and Switzerland, have dealt with cost sharing in their health systems. It provides an overview of each country’s health care system, its cost-sharing policies, and the cost-sharing exemptions and limits that help protect people with low incomes, certain medical conditions or high medical costs, and other characteristics from burdensome, excessive costs.

EMPLOYMENT WORK USA

Source: http://france.usembassy.gov

EMPLOYMENT

Robert Michaels and Robert P. Murphy
Green Jobs: Fact or Fiction? An Assessment of the Literature
Institute for Energy Research – Study - January 2009 – 21 pages
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/IER%20Study%20-%20Green%20Jobs.pdf
“It is highly questionable whether a government campaign to spur “green jobs” would have net economic benefits. Indeed, the distortionary impacts of government intrusion into energy markets could prematurely force business to abandon current production technologies for more expensive ones. Furthermore, there would likely be negative economic consequences from forcing higher-cost alternative energy sources upon the economy. These factors would likely increase consumer energy costs and the costs of a wide array of energy-intensive goods, slow GDP growth and ironically may yield no net job gains. More likely, they would result in net job losses.”

Labor Supply Responses to Changes in Wealth and Credit
Mary Daly, Bart Hobijn, and Joyce Kwok Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco - January 2009 –http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2009/el2009-05.html

“Using monthly data from the Household Survey of the Current Employment Situation Report, we find evidence suggestive that sharply reduced wealth and liquidity are prompting certain demographic groups to enter the labor force in greater numbers.”

Building Tomorrow’s Workforce: Promoting the Education and Advancement of Hispanic Immigrant Workers in America
Mary Gershwin et al. Excelencia in Education - January 21, 2009 – 51 pages http://www.edexcelencia.org/pdf/Building%20Tomorrow's%20Workforce%20full%20report.pdf
Strategic partnerships between industry and community colleges that engage younger Hispanic immigrants can boost the economy by training an important proportion of U.S. workers for future jobs. The report looks at six innovative partnerships throughout the country.

Recessions and Older Workers
Alicia H. Munnell et al. Center for Retirement Research, Boston College - January 2009 – 11 pages http://crr.bc.edu/images/stories/Briefs/ib_9-2.pdf
With the economy in recession, questions arise about how older workers are faring and how their fate relative to younger workers compares to the past. On the one hand, labor force participation among older workers has been rising since the early 1990s, a reversal of the long-standing trend toward ever-earlier retirement. On the other hand, the edge that older workers used to have relative to younger workers when it comes to layoffs seems to have disappeared, so the rise in the unemployment rate for older workers in recessions now looks similar to that for younger workers.

Improving Quality of Life through Telecommuting
Wendell Cox Information Technology & Innovation Foundation - January 20, 2009 – 24 pages http://www.itif.org/files/Telecommuting.pdf
The report shows that the number of jobs filled by telecommuters could grow nearly four-fold to 19 million and deliver substantial economic, environmental and quality of life benefits for the United States over the next 12 years. Spurred by advances in IT, especially the spread of broadband, telecommuting is already the fastest growing mode of getting from home to work. The report calls for government to pursue policies to accelerate and maximize telecommuting, including spurring the deployment and adoption of broadband, which is an essential facilitator of telecommuting.
Sundown for California Joel Kotkin The American – Article - November/December 2008.
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/november-december-magazine/sundown-for-california
“Much has changed in recent years. And today our Golden State appears headed, if not for imminent disaster, then toward an unanticipated, maddening, and largely unnecessary mediocrity. Since 2000, California’s job growth rate— which in the late 1970s surged at many times the national average—has lagged behind the national average by almost 20 percent. Rapid population growth, once synonymous with the state, has slowed dramatically. Most troubling of all, domestic out-migration, about even in 2001, swelled to over 260,000 in 2007 and now surpasses international immigration. Texas has replaced California as the leading growth center for Hispanics.”

Deborah Reed California's Future Workforce: Will There Be Enough College Graduates?
Public Policy Institute of California – Report - December 2008 - 20 pages http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_1208DRR.pdf
“Over the past several decades, the demand in California for college-educated workers has grown. But the supply of college graduates has not kept pace with demand, and it appears that this “workforce skills gap” will not only continue but widen. This study examines the causes, magnitude, and likely consequences of the potential mismatch between the level of education the future population is likely to possess and the level of education demanded by the future economy. The author concludes that if current trends continue, California will experience a serious shortfall of college graduates by 2025, unable to meet its needs even through the migration of college graduates from other states.”



REGULATION
Regulating Work in Confined Spaces
N. Mike Helvacian National Center for Policy Analysis - Brief Analysis, January 19, 2009 – 2 pages http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba639/ba639.pdf
“Since the early 20th century, employers have had incentives to increase workplace safety. In fact, the financial liability of employers for workplace accidents — as reflected in their worker’s compensation premiums — is the greatest incentive for employers to improve safety. Furthermore, increased workplace safety reduces employers’ costs due to injuries and lost productivity. OSHA regulations, on the other hand, increase regulatory compliance costs, but don’t necessarily improve safety.”

EMPLOYMENT RECESSION ; SOCIAL SECURITY
RECESSION AND OLDER WORKERS
Center for Retirement Research, Boston College, January 2009
http://crr.bc.edu/images/stories/Briefs/ib_9-2.pdf
With the economy in recession, questions arise about how older workers are faring and how their fate relative to younger workers compares to the past. On the one hand, labor force participation among older workers has been rising since the early 1990s, a reversal of the long-standing trend toward ever-earlier retirement. On the other hand, the edge that older workers used to have relative to younger workers when it comes to layoffs seems to have disappeared, so the rise in the unemployment rate for older workers in recessions now looks similar to that for younger workers.

RECESSION, POVERTY AND THE RECOVERY ACT
Center for American Progress, February 11, 2009
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/pdf/recession_poverty.pdf
The economic downturn means hard times for millions of Americans. If unemployment rates reach double-digits, as some economists fear, nearly 7 million people will lose their jobs, more than 7 million will lose their health coverage, and more than 12 million will fall into poverty.