American Community Survey Workers from Home, 2010-2013

Author: Zachary Guarino

Introduction: This project focuses on comparing the annual percentage of workers at home for primarily the State of Connecticut in comparison to the United States National average from the years 2010 to 2013.

Data: The data is derived from the American Community Survey Means of Transportation to Work by Age 1-Year Estimates from 2010 to 2013. The age breakdowns were aggregated together for this analysis because the focus in on the average for the State and not each age grouping. The workers at home percentage was calculated by dividing the number of workers at home by the total number of workers. Utilizing Tableau software I was able to create visualizations for this data set. There is a wide range of interactive visualizations including line and bar graphs. Most of the Dashboard space is used to show comparisons withe Connecticut and the U.S. workers at home percentage, but I went t a step further to also show how Connecticut compared to other states in New England. Several features on the Dashboard can be altered according to a specific year of interest, allowing for closer comparison in a given year. The trend lines also tell a story of how many workers at home there are over the 3 year span of 2010 to 2013.

Findings: Through the data visualizations I was able to come to the conclusion that Connecticut has had an increase in people who work from home, increasing about 0.39% from 2010 to 2013. There was a slight drop in 2012 but the overall trend is increasing. The percentage of people working at home for the National average had a much more gradual trend line, only increasing by 0.03% from 2010 to 2013. Connecticut has never been higher then the National average yet but is approaching closer every year. In 2013, Connecticut was at 4.33% workers from home the National average only was slightly higher at 4.36%. In comparison to New England, Connecticut although not having the highest percentage of workings at home ranks pretty well given its increasing trend. States like New Hampshire and Rhode Island appear to be on a decrease in people working at home. Vermont’s percentage has been fluctuating a lot, however Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts all have positive slopes. A closer look at the trend line shows that Maine has the greatest increase, followed by Connecticut and Massachusetts. So I would rank Connecticut 2nd in percentage of workers at home in New England. The visualization for New England on the Dashboard has a year by year comparison bar graph to allow for analysis at the annual level and the line graphs have been omitted for conservation of space.

Sources:

Means of Transportation to Work by Age, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, 2010 – 2013

2013 Estimates: http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/13_1YR/B08101/0100000US|0100000US.04000

2012 Estimates: http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/12_1YR/B08101/0100000US|0100000US.04000

2011 Estimates: http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/11_1YR/B08101/0100000US|0100000US.04000

2010 Estimates: http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/10_1YR/B08101/0100000US|0100000US.04000