I've created a tool for visualizing cumulative state-to-state migration for the years from 2008-2022. Pick a state, and migration flow of interest (inbound, outbound, or net), and you'll get a graphical representation of the migration to/from that state. Here's an example - outbound migration from California (the darker the blue, the more migration there was … Continue reading Visualizing State-to-State Migration

I'll continue my look at the IRS migration data; specifically, state-to-state migration. I've got data for the past 14 years, so let's get digging. Here are the largest state-to-state migration totals for that period: FromToMigration, 2008-2022Reverse MigrationCaliforniaTexas989,744564,287New YorkNew Jersey859,094496,497New YorkFlorida851,938414,838CaliforniaArizona635,432402,452FloridaGeorgia609,691564,034CaliforniaNevada604,838356,971TexasCalifornia564,287989,744GeorgiaFlorida564,034609,691FloridaTexas560,271477,570CaliforniaWashington553,507384,579 Over this 14 year period, nearly a million Californians moved to Texas (and a half … Continue reading Moving on…

The IRS does a clever thing with the tax returns it receives. Each tax return has a tax payer ID and an address; the IRS uses this to figure out year-to-year migration patterns. The assumption being, when a tax payer reports a different address from one year to the next, this indicates that they moved. … Continue reading State Migration

I was perusing the voting results for Santa Cruz County and I stumbled across something weird. It has to do with a strange feature of this year's ballot: the U.S. Senate election for California. After Diane Feinstein died in September 2023, Governor Gavin Newsome appointed Laphonza Butler to fill her seat temporarily. By law, after … Continue reading Undervoters

The NFIRS data lists several time stamps for each incident. One is when the alarm was received at the fire station. A second is when the fire company arrived on the scene. The difference between these two is the response time: how quickly the fire company responded to the alarm. To make sure we're doing … Continue reading Fire Response Time

When researching the fire data, I stumbled across a few miscellaneous items. None are worth a full column, so what follows is a grab bag of fire factoids. North Dakota: Farm Equipment Fire Capital of the US I talked about vehicle fires previously. One of the more obscure subcategories of vehicle fires is "Off-road vehicle … Continue reading Fire Odds & Ends

Not the happiest subject today - I'm looking at the casualty numbers from the NFIRS reports. In 2022, the data reports 8763 civilian casualties (6384 injuries and 2379 deaths) in all fires. Here's a chart that shows the severity of fire-related injuries to civilians in 2022 The good news is, the most common injury in … Continue reading Fire Casualties

In 2022 (the most recent year of data for the NFIRS) there were a reported 108,533 passenger vehicle fires. Yes, that's a lot - about 8.6% of all fires in the nation. First, let's see which states have the most car fires, as a percentage of all reported fires Hawaii and the deep South lead … Continue reading Vehicle Fires

There's a thing called the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). Not surprisingly, it collects information on fire incidents from across the nation. It also collects other emergency incident data, like Rescue, Emergency Medical Service, Hazardous Conditions, and so on. Let's look at just fires for now. Before we dive in, note that NFIRS is … Continue reading What’s with the Rubbish Fires?

Take a standard deck of playing cards. Give it a good set of shuffles (six or seven should do). Congratulations! The order of your 52 cards has never been created before in human history. Of course, I can't guarantee that your deck's order is unique, but I can be pretty darn sure. The number of … Continue reading Do Something Unique Today