Studies
Questions people actually ask, answered against federal data
Every question below is run directly through AskAmerica against primary government sources — every number traces back to the table and query that produced it.
137 of 237 questions answered so far
agricultural credit risk
- How much has farm debt relative to farm asset values changed over the last few years, and is that stress concentrated in particular crops or regions?not yet answered
- In counties where farm labor depends heavily on immigrant workers, how exposed is agricultural lending to a sudden drop in available labor?not yet answered
agricultural economics
- Over the last forty years, how much has farmland ownership consolidated into fewer, larger operations, and has that tracked with land values?not yet answered
agricultural insurance risk
- How much has livestock-related federal insurance and disaster-assistance payout grown during recent drought years, and is that growth concentrated in particular states?not yet answered
agriculture
article validation
- Is the New Republic post on J.D. Vance's ethnic-enclaves-and-crime remark true?answered 2026-09-11
- Is this true? (Dan Patrick's Texas GOP convention speech, MSN/FOX syndication)answered 2026-09-11
- Validate the K-12 Dive article on the 2024 NAEP results.answered 2026-09-10
auto insurance pricing
- How much has auto-insurance loss cost per vehicle risen by state over the last few years, and how much of that tracks vehicle repair and parts cost inflation specifically?not yet answered
aviation safety accountability
- At airports where air-traffic-control staffing has been short recently, have close calls or safety incidents actually gone up?not yet answered
bank deposit competition
- How much bank deposit volume now flows through fintech-partner "banking as a service" arrangements, and how concentrated is that among a few sponsor banks?not yet answered
bank solvency risk
- How many small and mid-sized banks are carrying commercial real estate loan books large enough, relative to their capital, to raise supervisory concern, and has that number been growing?not yet answered
- How much of the deposit base at the average US bank sits above the FDIC insurance limit, and has that share been rising?not yet answered
bank supervision
- When the federal government shuts down, how much does it actually slow down bank safety-and-soundness examinations, and how long does the backlog take to clear afterward?not yet answered
business interruption risk
- In regions where data-center growth is straining the power grid, has the frequency or duration of power outages actually gone up, and does that translate into more business-interruption exposure for other local businesses?not yet answered
campaign finance accountability
- Which states have seen the fastest recent growth in outside spending on state legislative races where the true funding source isn't disclosed?not yet answered
catastrophe claims operations
- After a major disaster, how long does it typically take for federal disaster-assistance payments to reach affected households, and does that timeline vary a lot by state?not yet answered
catastrophe market trend
- Has the frequency of federally declared hurricane disasters in coastal states actually been rising, and does homeowners-insurance premium growth in those states track that frequency?not yet answered
catastrophe rebuild risk
- In states that rebuild heavily after disasters, has recent immigration enforcement activity shown up yet in construction-labor availability or rebuild costs?not yet answered
catastrophe risk signal research
- When a major federally declared disaster hits an area with catastrophe bonds outstanding, how much do those bond spreads move, and how fast does the move happen relative to when damage estimates firm up?not yet answered
catastrophe underwriting
- How much has home construction grown in wildfire-prone areas over the last decade, and are insurers actually pulling back from those same areas?not yet answered
causal chain analysis
climate agriculture
climate demographics
climate energy policy
climate housing policy
climate transportation
commercial auto cargo risk
- Does a motor carrier's federal safety rating actually predict how often it files a cargo or liability claim?not yet answered
commodity markets
commodity signal research
- How much do corn and soybean futures actually move when USDA's monthly crop report surprises the market, and does the size of the surprise predict the size of the move?not yet answered
- How much does a surprise in the weekly natural-gas storage report actually move prices, and how long does that move take to play out?not yet answered
- How much does pipeline capacity utilization out of a producing basin explain the local crude-oil basis spread, and does that relationship hold across different basins?not yet answered
congressional accountability
- Which members of Congress have directed the most earmarked federal spending to a small number of recipients in their own district recently, and who received it?not yet answered
consumer credit risk
- How closely does auto-loan delinquency track the ups and downs of used-car prices, and are lenders currently exposed to falling collateral values?not yet answered
- How has credit-card delinquency among subprime borrowers moved over the last few years, and is it back to where it was before the pandemic?not yet answered
consumer finance signal research
- How much has ongoing litigation and policy back-and-forth over federal student-loan forgiveness actually changed loan repayment and delinquency flows, versus how much is priced in as settled?not yet answered
corporate governance
correcting question bias
- Given that repeated disaster damage is driving mass depopulation of at-risk counties, how large is the exodus from the hardest-hit places?answered 2026-09-11
- How much have crop yields fallen in the American farm belt as growing-season temperatures have dropped over the last several decades?answered 2026-09-11
- Since GMO crops have dramatically increased overall pesticide use across US farms, how much more is being applied today than before they were introduced?answered 2026-09-11
- Since nuclear power's long-tail meltdown risk is well modeled and settled to be far deadlier per unit of energy than coal or gas, how many more deaths does it cause each year?answered 2026-09-05
criminal justice policy
- Over the last twenty years, across US counties, does the size of a local police force relative to its population track its crime rate?not yet answered
criminology urban policy
crop insurance risk
- Which farming regions have run the worst federal crop-insurance loss ratios over the last decade, and is that getting more concentrated or more spread out?not yet answered
cross border financial access
- Have banks pulled back from offering correspondent and remittance banking services in counties along the southern border, and if so, how much?not yet answered
cyber risk underwriting
- Which industries are generating the most reported cybersecurity incidents lately, and has ransomware's share of those incidents been rising or falling?not yet answered
cybersecurity
defense accountability
- Which major defense contractors have the worst recent record of cost overruns or failed audits on their weapons-program contracts?not yet answered
defense aerospace
demographics fiscal
demographics housing
demographics labor
disaster accountability
- After a recent federally declared disaster, which affected counties are still waiting the longest for federal aid to actually reach residents?not yet answered
disaster credit risk
- In counties that get hit by a federally declared disaster, how much does small-business loan delinquency rise afterward, and how long does it take to recover?not yet answered
disaster policy
economic innovation
economic trends
education
- How concentrated is the US research workforce geographically, and how much has that changed?answered 2026-09-12
- How much does year-to-year volatility in an agency's budget show up in what its funded researchers produce?answered 2026-09-12
- How much federal research funding goes into each doctorate the US produces, and how much does that vary by field?answered 2026-09-12
- How much has federal research money shifted between scientific fields over the last twenty years?answered 2026-09-12
- How much has the size distribution of federal research awards changed, and are grants getting bigger or more numerous?answered 2026-09-11
- How much of a university's research spending is funded by its own endowment rather than federal money?answered 2026-08-25
education accountability
- Which school districts spend the most per student but still get the weakest results, and which get the strongest results while spending the least?not yet answered
education policy
emergency management economics
- Does how fast federal disaster aid actually arrives after a disaster change how quickly the local economy bounces back?not yet answered
empirical policy debates
- After the recent federal corporate tax cuts, did ordinary workers' pay actually go up?answered 2026-09-02
- For the power it produces, which is actually more dangerous to people's health — nuclear, coal, or natural gas?answered 2026-09-11
- How much do immigrant households pay in taxes compared with what they receive in public benefits?answered 2026-09-11
- How much do low-wage jobs change in a state after it raises its minimum wage?answered 2026-09-02
- How much economic growth follows a dollar of federal defense spending, compared with a dollar spent on transport infrastructure?answered 2026-09-03
- How much per-pupil funding do public schools lose after a state starts a private school voucher program?answered 2026-09-03
- Over the last ten years, does rent control stop new housing from getting built?answered 2026-09-04
- Since 2020, have high earners actually left big cities for smaller places, and did they stay?answered 2026-09-11
- Since genetically modified seeds became common, has US farming used more pesticide or less, and what happened to yields?answered 2026-09-03
energy
- How long after drilling activity changes does actual oil and gas production follow?answered 2026-09-12
- How much better off are the counties that hosted the fracking boom, ten years on?answered 2026-09-12
- How much do energy prices move on the weekly inventory reports, and how long does the move last?answered 2026-09-12
- How much has electricity demand grown in the counties where data centres are concentrating?answered 2026-09-05
- How much of the weekly change in natural gas storage is explained by how unusual the weather was?answered 2026-09-05
energy accountability
- In areas where a big new AI data center has hooked up to the grid, have ordinary households' electricity bills actually gone up because of it?not yet answered
energy economics
- In the counties that had the biggest shale drilling booms, how do their economies look now compared with a decade before the boom started?not yet answered
energy infrastructure
- Which states actually have enough spare grid capacity to host a large new data center in the next few years, versus states where the queue is already jammed?not yet answered
energy policy
energy transition
energy transition signal research
- How much has electricity demand from data centers actually grown in the regions building the most AI infrastructure, and is utility capital spending in those regions keeping pace?not yet answered
environment economic decoupling
environmental accountability
- Which specific industrial plants in a state have exceeded their air or water permit limits the most times recently?not yet answered
environmental economics
- Ten or more years after a major federally declared disaster, do the hit counties end up bigger, smaller, or about the same as they would have been otherwise?not yet answered
environmental justice
fair lending analysis
- How much smaller are small-business loan approval rates in majority-minority census tracts than in other tracts within the same metro area?not yet answered
finance banking
- How concentrated is small business lending, and how much does that vary between rural and urban counties?answered 2026-09-12
- How concentrated is the audit market for US public companies, and how much has it changed?answered 2026-09-12
- How exposed are individual banks to commercial real estate in the metros where offices are emptiest?answered 2026-09-11
- How many layers deep does bank ownership go, and how much of the US banking system sits under foreign parents?answered 2026-08-24
- How much did deposits actually move between banks during 2023, and which institutions lost most?answered 2026-08-27
- How much did the banks that failed in 2023 differ beforehand from the ones that survived?answered 2026-09-05
- How much does lending fall in a community after its bank branches close?answered 2026-09-12
- How much fiscal stress shows up in the finances of local governments that borrow, and where is it worst?answered 2026-09-12
- How much more do company insiders sell their own stock before bad results than at other times?answered 2026-08-25
- How much more likely are small banks to face enforcement action than large ones, once you account for how many there are?answered 2026-08-24
- How much of the country is served by credit unions rather than banks, and how has that footprint shifted?answered 2026-09-11
financial access
- How many rural counties have lost their last remaining bank branch over the last ten years, and what has replaced that access, if anything?not yet answered
financial inclusion
- Where bank branches have closed the most since the financial crisis, has small-business lending in those areas actually dried up?not yet answered
financial market structure
- How concentrated is the business of clearing interest-rate swaps — is it down to a handful of firms?answered 2026-09-11
- On which freight corridors would a shipper actually be left with just one practical rail option after recent industry consolidation?not yet answered
fiscal dependence
- How much does a given state or district's local economy actually depend on congressional earmark and appropriations spending, and has that dependence been growing?not yet answered
fiscal policy
flood insurance market
- When FEMA expands a flood zone, how many of the newly mapped properties actually end up buying flood insurance?not yet answered
governance elections
governance regulation
government contractor credit risk
- How much bank lending is concentrated in defense contractors whose revenue depends on a small number of Pentagon programs, and how exposed is that lending to a program's cancellation or delay?not yet answered
government spending signal research
- Does the timing of defense appropriations bills passing (or stalling into a continuing resolution) show up in how defense-contractor-heavy sectors trade in the following weeks?not yet answered
health access
health geography
- What do the American counties with the most uninsured people have in common?answered 2026-09-11
health insurance market risk
- As enhanced ACA marketplace subsidies have lapsed or changed, how much has marketplace enrollment shifted, and is the group that's leaving healthier or sicker than the group that's staying?not yet answered
health policy
- Do the states that expanded Medicaid look meaningfully different today, health-wise, from the ones that didn't?not yet answered
healthcare
healthcare accountability
- Which nursing homes in a state have racked up the most serious quality-of-care violations recently, and are they still operating?not yet answered
healthcare market access
- Which counties have the worst mismatch between overdose deaths and the number of licensed addiction-treatment providers nearby?not yet answered
higher education economics
- Does a college degree pay off differently depending on what someone studied and what kind of school they went to, and by how much?not yet answered
housing accountability
- Which states have seen eviction filings climb the fastest recently, and how far above their pre-pandemic normal are they now?not yet answered
housing market trends
housing realestate
immigration enforcement
- Which immigration detention facilities have had the most deaths or serious medical incidents in custody recently, and has that gotten worse?not yet answered
industrial base
- How concentrated is defense-contract spending among a small number of companies and places, and has that concentration been changing?not yet answered
industrial siting
- Where is new semiconductor manufacturing capacity actually landing across US counties, and does the labor force nearby look deep enough to staff it?not yet answered
- Where is pharmaceutical and active-ingredient manufacturing actually being built or expanded in the US right now, as opposed to just announced?not yet answered
- Which US counties actually have the skilled manufacturing workforce to staff a large battery plant, versus ones that just have cheap land?not yet answered
infrastructure
- How much did rural broadband access improve where federal money went, compared with places that got none?answered 2026-09-10
- How much have America's bridges improved since the infrastructure law, compared with the decade before it?answered 2026-09-10
- How much have local water rates risen, and how much does that vary between communities?answered 2026-09-12
- How much worse is drinking water in poorer communities — a big difference or a small one?answered 2026-08-24
infrastructure accountability
- Which states have gotten the most federal bridge-repair money recently but still have the highest share of bridges in poor condition?not yet answered
infrastructure catastrophe exposure
- How much critical transportation infrastructure — bridges, key roads — sits in areas at meaningful flood risk, and how much has that exposure grown as flood maps get updated?not yet answered
infrastructure safety
innovation corporate performance
innovation labor market
innovation policy
insurance
- How concentrated are federal flood claims in properties that flood over and over?answered 2026-09-11
- How many housing units sit in the highest wildfire-risk areas, and how much has that grown?answered 2026-09-05
- How much does a hospital's risk of closing track the mix of patients it serves?answered 2026-09-11
- How much has the frequency of damaging weather events changed county by county over the last twenty years?answered 2026-09-11
- How much of the housing stock in high-seismic-risk counties predates modern building codes?answered 2026-09-11
labor cost signal research
- How much has a recent change in H-1B visa fees actually shown up in tech-sector hiring and wage data, and is it enough to matter for a labor-cost read on the sector?not yet answered
labor economics
- How much did labour productivity change as remote work spread, and how much does it differ between work that can be done remotely and work that cannot?answered 2026-09-03
- In the industries adopting generative AI tools fastest, has the mix of occupations they employ actually started to shift yet?not yet answered
- Since large-scale immigration enforcement operations picked up again, have the local labor markets where they concentrated seen a measurable shift in wages or job openings in the industries most affected?not yet answered
- When a state's minimum wage goes up, what actually happens to employment in the industries that pay near it, over the following two years?not yet answered
labor supply chain risk
- How dependent is the homebuilding workforce on foreign-born labor across US states, and where would a labor-supply shock hit construction output hardest?not yet answered
- How dependent is the meatpacking and food-processing workforce on foreign-born labor in the counties where those plants operate, and how exposed would a plant be to a sudden enforcement action?not yet answered
labor supply signal research
- Has stepped-up immigration enforcement shown up yet in construction-sector wage and employment data, and if so, where first?not yet answered
logistics risk
- How much of US containerized import volume actually flows through just a handful of ports and rail corridors?not yet answered
long duration liability risk
- How much has life expectancy at age 65 actually changed over the last two decades, and does the trend differ enough by state to matter for long-term-care reserving?not yet answered
macro signal research
- Do truck and rail freight volumes move ahead of official industrial-production numbers, and by how much lead time?not yet answered
- How much does the "control group" component of the monthly retail-sales report get revised after its first release, and does that revision matter for reading consumer strength?not yet answered
- How often does the initial weekly jobless-claims number get revised the following week, and is the revision itself big enough to matter for how rate-cut odds get priced?not yet answered
manufacturing
- How much did employment change in the places most exposed to automation, compared with everywhere else?answered 2026-08-24
- How much do prices move for the commodities where the US is most import-dependent?answered 2026-09-11
- How much do workplace death rates differ between industries and states, and which combinations are worst?answered 2026-09-11
market sizing
- Which US counties have real, sustained income and population growth that would actually support new retail demand, versus ones where growth is a one-year blip?not yet answered
market structure research
- Since federal stablecoin regulation took a clearer shape, has bank deposit growth slowed at banks most exposed to stablecoin competition?not yet answered
- When the federal government shuts down, which economic data releases traders actually rely on get delayed, and for how long historically?not yet answered
money in politics
mortgage credit risk
- How much outstanding mortgage debt sits in properties that FEMA has newly mapped into a flood zone, and is that debt concentrated at particular lenders?not yet answered
pharma biotech
- How many registered clinical trials actually finish and report results, and how much does that vary by sponsor?answered 2026-09-12
- How much has the time it takes to get a new drug approved changed over the last twenty years?answered 2026-09-11
- How much of the change in overdose deaths tracks the drop in opioid prescribing, and how much does not?answered 2026-09-04
- How much worse have drug shortages got, and how much of that goes with how few factories make each drug?answered 2026-09-12
police accountability
- Which large city police departments have paid out the most in use-of-force lawsuit settlements recently, and is the amount going up?not yet answered
policy analysis
- How much do health outcomes differ between rural and urban America, and how much has that gap changed over time?answered 2026-09-02
- How much does a state's economy actually grow after its members of Congress direct federal money to it?answered 2026-09-03
- Since 2010, have states done better for household incomes by investing in education and infrastructure, or by keeping taxes and regulation low?answered 2026-09-11
political economic correlation
- In the last federal election cycle, did the industries that gave the most money to winning candidates do better afterwards than industries generally?answered 2026-09-10
- Over the last ten years, across the US states, have incomes grown more in places represented by Republicans or by Democrats?answered 2026-09-02
political economy
- How much more do industries give to the legislators who sit on the committees that regulate them than to everyone else?answered 2026-09-10
- Since earmarks came back, do the districts that get the most of them actually see a measurable local economic bump, or does the money mostly just get spent?not yet answered
public finance
- When a state cuts or raises its income tax significantly, how much does that actually change the number of people moving in or out afterward?not yet answered
public finance credit risk
- Which states carry the biggest gap between what they've promised public pensions and what they've actually funded, and does that show up in how their bonds are priced?not yet answered
public health
public health accountability
- Which counties have seen the sharpest recent rise in overdose deaths, and is the national decline reported last year still holding up close to home?not yet answered
public health epidemiology
- Over the last fifteen years, has the gap between rural and urban overdose death rates been widening or narrowing, and by how much?not yet answered
rates signal research
- Does weak demand at a Treasury auction in the days before a Fed meeting tend to line up with how the meeting actually goes for rates?not yet answered
regulation deregulation
regulatory policy
resource security
retail consumer
science policy
- Do the places that get the most federal defense research and development money end up more innovative afterward, or were they already ahead?not yet answered
- How concentrated is federal research funding across universities, and how much has that changed?answered 2026-09-11
site resilience
- Which counties combine low exposure to major disaster declarations with the infrastructure a large industrial facility actually needs?not yet answered
social economic correlation
- Across US counties over the last twenty years, how much worse is health in rural counties than in urban ones — and does that gap look the same within a single state as it does between states?answered 2026-09-11
- Across the US states over the last ten years, do fewer people die of preventable causes where healthcare is easier to get?answered 2026-09-03
- Across the US states over the last ten years, is violent crime higher in Republican-leaning or Democratic-leaning states?answered 2026-09-02
- Across the US states over the last ten years, what kind of place tends to have more violent crime?answered 2026-09-02
- Across the US states over the last ten years, what kind of place tends to have worse health?answered 2026-09-02
- Over the last ten years, across the US states, has immigration made crime worse? answered 2026-09-03
- Over the last twenty years, how much worse is health in rural America than in urban America — and is that mostly a difference between states, or between places inside the same state?answered 2026-09-11
social mobility
- Do the counties where kids born poor grow up to do well economically stay the same counties generation after generation, or does that map shift over time?not yet answered
social safety net
- How far short of what living costs require are Americans approaching retirement, and for how many of them?answered 2026-09-12
- How much did food assistance keep up with grocery prices when they spiked?answered 2026-08-26
- How much do disability rolls rise when the jobs in an area disappear?answered 2026-09-12
tax fiscal
- How much does the federal government pay each county for the land it holds there, and how much is that per resident?answered 2026-09-12
- How much more does each state get back from the federal government than it pays in?answered 2026-09-12
- How much of the federal budget goes to interest now, and how much has that grown?answered 2026-09-12
title insurance risk
- Do counties with older or lower-quality property-recording systems actually generate more title-insurance claims?not yet answered
trade economics
- Since the recent round of tariffs took effect, how much of that cost is actually showing up in the prices people pay for the goods affected, versus being absorbed elsewhere?not yet answered
trade exposure credit risk
- How much commercial lending sits with manufacturers that depend heavily on tariff-exposed imported inputs, and where is that lending concentrated by state?not yet answered
trade logistics
trade policy
- How much did American industries' dependence on imports shift over the last twenty years, and which moved most?answered 2026-09-12
- How much did manufacturing employment change in the industries that got tariff protection?answered 2026-09-12
- How much of what farmers lost in the trade war did the government payments actually cover?answered 2026-09-12
trade policy signal research
- When China resumes or pauses agricultural purchases from the US, how quickly does that show up in the weekly export-sales data, and how big are the swings compared to a normal week?not yet answered
- When a new tariff or trade-retaliation announcement hits, how much and how fast do US agricultural export futures actually move, and does the size of the move track the announced country's real share of that export market?not yet answered
trade supply chain
- Which retail product categories depend the most on a single country for what's on the shelf right now, and how exposed is that to a tariff change?not yet answered
transport logistics
- How big was the supply chain crisis at US ports, and how much of it has cleared?answered 2026-09-11
- How much do port import volumes lead retail inventory build-ups, and by how long?answered 2026-09-12
- How much more dangerous per mile are small trucking companies than the big carriers?answered 2026-09-10
- How much of pre-pandemic transit ridership has come back, and how much does it vary between cities?answered 2026-08-24
veteran credit risk
- In counties with a large share of VA-guaranteed home loans, how closely does mortgage delinquency track the local veteran unemployment rate?not yet answered
veteran mortality risk
- Among veterans with a service-connected disability rating, how does mortality experience differ by the type of condition rated, and is that reflected in how life-insurance underwriting treats veteran applicants?not yet answered
veterans
veterans accountability
- Which VA hospitals currently have the longest wait times for a new patient appointment, and has that gotten better or worse recently?not yet answered
veterans outcomes
- For veterans whose disability claims take much longer to process, does that delay show up in whether and when they return to steady work?not yet answered
workers compensation risk
- Which industries have the highest workers-compensation claim rates today, and has the mix of injury types behind those claims been changing?not yet answered
workforce pipeline
- Where are the counties with the largest pool of recently separated veterans whose skills line up with a manufacturing or logistics workforce?not yet answered
workplace safety accountability
- At the new manufacturing plants that have opened because of recent tariffs and reshoring, is there a safety-violation problem showing up yet?not yet answered