Tag: statistics

The U.S. Is on Track for Its Lowest Murder Rate Ever
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I’ve been pretty public about my admiration for crime analyst Jeff Asher and his Real-Time Crime Index, a tool that lets you take a deep dive into all kinds of crime data. So when Jeff wrote recently that the U.S. was on track for the lowest murder rate ever, I took notice.

I reached out to Jeff with a few questions about what he is seeing in the numbers.

Our exchange has been lightly edited for length.

What do we think we know about the national murder rate in 2025?

We know that murder is falling fast and that it’s almost certainly well below pre-COVID levels. That’s clear in the FBI data, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, Gun Violence Archive data, and in my project – the Real-Time Crime Index (RTCI).

The RTCI takes a sample of data from several hundred cities to evaluate national crime trends as they occur. According to the most recent RTCI sample of 562 agencies covering 116 million people, murder is down 20% through July this year compared to 2024. Doing back-of-the-napkin math of a 15-20% drop in 2025 on top of the FBI’s estimated murder rate for 2024 points to a strong likelihood of the lowest murder rate ever recorded this year (data back to 1960).

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Do we know why?

No! Criminologists also don’t “know” why crime fell so severely in the 1990s. It’s a major accomplishment that we can actually measure changing crime trends as they occur, but explaining them is a whole other challenge. Any explanation must account for at least five factors:
The declines are occurring nearly everywhere in the U.S.

The declines began in 2023 but have accelerated the last two years.

Most medium and large cities have fewer police officers today than they had in 2022.

We have not fixed the supposed root causes of crime such as poverty and lack of educational opportunities.

The nation is still awash in guns.
In my opinion, the main driver is that an enormous investment from the federal government in the years after the pandemic enabled a vast array of new efforts that have had an enormous effect. This includes a massive increase in local government hiring in the wake of the pandemic that allowed for government programming and services to be restored, huge increases in local/state government construction on streets and street lighting, neighborhood and social centers, and public safety infrastructure – all of which had direct and indirect impacts on crime. And there was a very big increase in Department of Justice spending from the Office of Justice Programs.

Is the overall crime rate tracking down?

All crime is falling. The FBI measures seven major categories of crime in 11 population groups ranging from rural counties to cities of 1 million or more, and crime was down in every category across every population group in 2024. Data from the RTCI for 2025 shows even larger decreases in both violent and property crime this year – greater than 10% in each category. Overall, the 2025 violent crime rate will likely be the lowest reported by the FBI since 1968, and the property crime rate will likely be the lowest ever reported by the FBI.

Could data revisions make it so this apparent improvement will prove to be an illusion?

Not every agency reports data to the FBI every year, so they have to estimate the usually small amount of missing data (typically about 5% of the country). In recent years, the revisions have gotten larger, and it’s not exactly clear why. Murder in 2023, for example, went from roughly down 11% to down roughly 9.5% when the numbers were revised in the 2024 data release. That can be frustrating for data nerds like me, but it doesn’t really impact the bottom line about crime in the United States.

One good workaround to this problem is to rely less on the FBI estimates and use other sources when thinking about U.S. crime trends. RTCI is a good independent source, there’s official CDC homicide data, and the Gun Violence Archive has reporting on shooting trends that people can rely on.

Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025
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Olivier Knox

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September 29, 2025
The conspiracy theorists who claim Kamala Harris really won in 2024

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Election denial has lately come to be viewed as a feature of the political right, reflected by the lawsuits, conspiratorial documentaries, and “Stop the Steal” protests that followed Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election. But in the months since 2024, a similar—albeit much quieter—form of election denial has emerged in parts of the progressive left.

These theories range from claims that Elon Musk used Starlink satellites to hack the election to a the quasi-mystical TikTok subculture known as the “4 A.M. Club,” whose members believe the timeline glitched and Kamala Harris won in a parallel reality. But the most prominent claims have been rooted in data-heavy spreadsheets and statistical jargon.

One of the most popular of these theories suggests that a 2024 National Security Agency audit confirmed that Kamala Harris won the election, a claim which gained notoriety after it appeared in This Will Hold, an anonymously published Substack. The post alleges that one of the audit’s supposed participants, an ex-CIA officer named Adam Zarnowski, possessed insider information about a global cabal of corrupt actors, international criminals, foreign operatives, billionaires, and political insiders who conspired together to manipulate the election’s outcome.

As The Atlantic recently reported, there is no independent verification of Zarnowski’s background beyond his own claims. A LinkedIn profile describes him as a “former CIA paramilitary operations officer” but provides no evidence that he is an expert in election security or statistics. Snopes has been unable to “independently verify Zarnowski’s employment with the CIA or his alleged involvement in [the] NSA audit.”

The Election Truth Alliance (ETA), a self-described nonpartisan watchdog group, has used statistical models to push claims that Harris won the election. In Rockland County, New York, for example, Harris received fewer votes for president than incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) did for Senate. The ETA suggests that possible election tampering can be inferred from this discrepancy.

But Charles Stewart, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out that this apparent discrepancy isn’t unusual and can easily be explained. Stewart attributes Harris’ weaker performance to her unpopularity among the county’s Orthodox Jewish voters relative to Gillibrand, as well as the broader trend of voters skipping races or voting split-ticket.

The organization’s claims go further. In a recent interview with the progressive commentator David Pakman, the ETA’s Nathan Taylor claimed that vote patterns in Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania illustrate a series of unusual relationships between candidate support and voter turnout. Using color-coded heat maps, Taylor asserts that his group has discovered statistical distortions similar to those seen in countries with a reputation for fraudulent election practices, such as Russia and Uganda. Using these maps, Taylor alleges that up to 190,000 votes cast in Pennsylvania may have been algorithmically shifted, which would be more than enough to flip the state.

To lend credibility to these claims, the ETA circulated a working paper by the University of Michigan political scientist Walter Mebane that used statistical techniques to examine Pennsylvania’s 2024 election results. Mebane told The Atlantic that while he was aware the group had used his public methodology and data models, he had not reviewed their findings and did not endorse their conclusions.

To this day, no court case or credible audit has validated any of these claims. Independent experts have repeatedly affirmed that the 2024 election, like the 2020 election before it, was secure and legitimate. Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters in November 2024 that her office detected no threat that could “materially impact” the outcome, assuring everyone that “our election infrastructure has never been more secure” and that election officials were better prepared than ever to deliver a “safe, secure, free, and fair” process.

Although this is hardly the first time that members of the left have questioned an election’s outcome, political scientist Justin Grimmer told The Atlantic that this behavior is also “strikingly similar” to that of those on the right who rejected the 2020 election results. “The most remarkable thing,” he added, “is the similarity in the analysis that we’re seeing from the bad claims made after 2020 and these similarly bad, really poorly set up claims from 2024.”

David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation and Research put it more bluntly, telling the magazine that these claims “ring as hollow and grifting as nearly identical claims made by those who profited off the Big Lie that Trump didn’t lose the 2020 election.”

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Jacob R. Swartz

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September 29, 2025
Big Business and Wall Street Need to Stand Up for Honest Data

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To some people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics may not sound like the most thrilling place to work. But many of its two thousand-plus employees, who produce the monthly jobs report, the Consumer Price Index, and other official economic releases, are proud data nerds. In a recent podcast, Erica Groshen, a Harvard-trained economist who served as the commissioner of the bureau from 2013 to 2017, relayed an inside joke at the agency. Question: How do you spot the extrovert at the B.L.S.? Answer: The extrovert is the one who looks at your shoes in the elevator.

Introverts or not, B.L.S. employees play a vital role in the U.S. economy, putting together statistics that policymakers, businesses, and households use to make decisions. To draw up its employment figures, the B.L.S. conducts monthly surveys of sixty thousand households and a hundred and twenty-one thousand employers. Some of the respondents take a while to reply. As more data come in, the agency updates its previous figures.

On August 1st, the bureau released its latest jobs report, which indicated that employment growth was considerably weaker in May and June compared with the agency’s initial estimates. But then Donald Trump claimed the numbers had been “rigged,” and abruptly fired the agency’s commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, a veteran labor economist who previously worked at the Census Bureau, the Department of the Treasury, and, under the Biden Administration, the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Last week, Trump nominated a replacement for McEntarfer: E. J. Antoni, an economist at the Heritage Foundation who regularly appears on conservative media, and whose credentials have been questioned by economists across the political spectrum. On X, Dave Hebert, of the free-market American Institute for Economic Research, wrote that he had been on programs with Antoni and had been impressed by two things: “His inability to understand basic economics and the speed with which he’s gone MAGA.”

None of this should come as a total shock. In countries run by populists, there often comes a moment when empirical reality, as reflected in official economic statistics, clashes with the regime’s rhetoric, and something gives. Argentina provides a famous example. In 2007, as the inflation rate was rising sharply, the government of Néstor Kirchner—whose wife, Cristina, was running to succeed him in an upcoming election—fired a top official at the national statistics agency and appointed a loyalist, under whom the agency reported inflation figures that were widely discredited.

It’s perhaps surprising that something like this didn’t happen during Trump’s first term. In his view, data is only as credible as it is convenient; he has long challenged statistics that aren’t supportive of his interests. During Trump’s 2016 campaign, when Barack Obama was still in the White House, Trump claimed that the real unemployment rate was considerably higher than the official one from the B.L.S. In March, 2017, when the bureau said that the economy had added a robust two hundred and thirty-five thousand jobs in the month prior, Trump’s press secretary quoted him as saying that the numbers were “phony in the past” but “very real now.”

The fact that job growth remained pretty strong until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, in early 2020, meant that Trump didn’t have much to complain about. In October, 2017, he nominated William Beach, an economist of well-established conservative credentials, to become the commissioner of the B.L.S. Beach has served as a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a vice-president of research at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which was founded with funding from Charles Koch, and a staff economist for Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee. Given this background, some Democratic senators expressed fears he would be a partisan commissioner, but his four-year tenure at the B.L.S., which ended in 2023, passed without any major controversies, and he has now emerged as a critic of Trump’s decision to fire McEntarfer.

On the day of McEntarfer’s dismissal, Beach described the move as “totally groundless” and said it “sets a dangerous precedent.” In a subsequent interview with CNN, he pointed out that there was no practical way for the commissioner to rig the jobs figures, which are produced by the B.L.S.’s career staff. He explained that the commissioner doesn’t see the numbers until a couple of days before they are released; by then, the data are already locked into the bureau’s computer system. When I spoke with Beach last week, he reiterated this fact and said that, in the short term, “the ability of the commissioner to influence the monthly figures, and their trend lines, is very near to zero.” The B.L.S. staffers who prepare them are so keen to guard against the possibility of interference by a political appointee, or even the perception that such a thing could be possible, that they once locked Beach out of a room where they were working, he recalled. The professionalism and dedication to producing the most accurate figures possible displayed by B.L.S. employees impressed him throughout his time at the agency, he added.

This is reassuring. If a new commissioner were to try to massage the monthly figures, or to change how they are calculated to make them look more favorable to Trump, they would need the concerted coöperation of B.L.S. employees. A mass walkout seems more likely. “Theoretically, you could fire all the people who work there and change the culture,” Beach said. “But then you wouldn’t be able to produce the reports without their expertise.”

If an Argentina-style outcome seems unlikely in the short term, there is still reason to be alarmed at Trump’s latest effort to bully government agencies that have long operated without political meddling. In the vast U.S. economy, where annual G.D.P. totals about thirty trillion dollars, nobody can keep tabs on everything—so people have to rely heavily on the official statistics. Economists refer to things that everybody can use, and which serve the public interest, as public goods: think clean air, national defense, lighthouses, and so on. “Federal statistics are a very classic case of a public good,” Groshen explained on the podcast Moody’s Talks. “It’s easy to take them for granted, but when they disappear you are in trouble.”

Although the jobs report and the Consumer Price Index are unlikely to vanish, the danger is that they could be degraded over time, with public trust in the B.L.S. and its products eroding in tandem. Beach said these concerns also extend to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which produces the G.D.P. figures, and to the Census Bureau. He noted that, before the firing of McEntarfer, the three statistical agencies had functioned independently of the White House, which inspired confidence. “They operated in a bubble. Now that bubble has burst,” Beach told me. “That’s what happened on August 1st. We can no longer say the agencies operate with an arms-length relationship to the White House. That’s gone.”

Another factor adding to the uncertainty surrounding the B.L.S. is that, even before Trump’s intervention, the bureau had been experiencing funding pressures, staff shortages, and declining response rates to the surveys that underpin its work. Since 2010, its budget has fallen by a fifth after adjusting for inflation, according to the Center for American Progress. Earlier this year, the Trump Administration called for a budget cut of eight per cent and imposed both a hiring freeze and an early-retirement program for personnel, which prompted the bureau to reduce its survey work in several U.S. cities. The issue of declining survey-response rate is one that other organizations, including opinion pollsters, have faced in recent years. The B.L.S. has moved to address it by, for instance, making it easier for the businesses and government agencies that it contacts each month to respond online rather than by phone or fax, and by incorporating some private sources of data into its statistics—but these efforts have been hampered by funding constraints.

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John Cassidy

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August 18, 2025
Information Pollution: The Tragedy of the Commons and Well-Poisoning on the Internet
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Discover how the internet propagates “information pollution” and how it threatens our collective understanding of facts and truth. Here’s how to navigate the chaos and find clean water to drink.

In a healthy and functional society, shared common resources are essential for the well-being and sustainability of the community.

These resources can include natural goods such as land, water, and the environment, as well as man-made goods such as public schools, parks, and libraries.

Generally, the ability to manage, sustain, and distribute these resources determines the success of a society, community, or nation as a whole.

The Tragedy of the Commons

The tragedy of the commons is a concept introduced by ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968, describing a scenario where individuals, acting in their own self-interest, overuse and deplete a shared resource, ultimately harming the entire community.

Classic examples include overgrazing on common land, overfishing in shared waters, and pollution of air and water. The key issue is that while the benefits of exploitation are enjoyed by individuals, the costs are distributed among the entire community.

Information as a Shared Resource

One common resource that is often neglected is news and information.

Over the last century, newspapers, radio, TV, and the internet have become the lifeblood of many nations, shaping public opinion and collective consciousness.

Truth and reliable information function as shared resources critical for various societal functions, including governance, public health, and social interaction.

Just as a community depends on clean water, society relies on accurate information to make decisions, build trust, and maintain peace and harmony.

When these information resources are polluted, the consequences can be severe, leading to mistrust, division, and poor decision-making.

Information Pollution

Information is a shared resource that is susceptible to degradation through neglect or deliberate actions, leading to a type of “information pollution.”

This phenomenon mirrors the “tragedy of the commons,” where the self-interested actions of individuals can spoil a common resource for everyone.

Information pollution occurs when false, misleading, or harmful information is introduced into the public discourse. This can happen through:
- Misinformation: Incorrect or misleading information spread unintentionally.
- Disinformation: False information spread deliberately to deceive.
- Malinformation: Information that is true but presented in a misleading context to cause harm.
All three types of information pollution hurt people’s ability to discern truth from fiction.

Well-Poisoning on the Internet

The internet can be a wonderful place to learn new things, but it’s also littered with information pollution, especially on social media sites filled with bots, spammers, and grifters.

When a water well is poisoned, everyone in the town ends up drinking dirty and contaminated water. The same is true for information pollution on the internet – and social media is dirty water.

There are a lot of factors that drive information pollution on the internet, but key ones include:
- Clickbait and engagement farming – For most people, the only measure of success on the internet is how much attention you get. An outrageous lie or falsehood will get a million impressions before anyone tries to confirm what’s been said. People rarely correct themselves if a lie is getting them a lot of impressions.
- Grifting and easy money – Many people see the internet as an opportunity for a quick buck, so a lot of content you see is purely money-driven, including advertisements, sponsored content, or superficial merchandise (mugs, t-shirts, diet supplements, brain enhancement pills, etc.) If you see anyone selling these types of products on the internet, you can be certain that truth is not their main motivation.
- Bots and algorithm-hacking – Artificial engagement on the internet is a huge problem. A lot of viral content you see these days is pushed by bot farms and clever algorithm manipulation. Organic growth by independent thinkers and creators used to be a genuine thing about a decade ago, but most big e-celebrities and influencers you see today are completely astroturfed.
- Politics and propaganda – A lot of misinformation and disinformation is politically driven propaganda. Governments and corporations are known to create their own bots and internet campaigns to shape public opinion in one direction or another.
- Echo chambers and groupthink – While it’s natural to associate with people who think like us and share the same beliefs, the internet tends to heighten this tendency. People only spend time on online spaces that confirm their existing beliefs and very rarely seek out different perspectives.
All of these factors make the internet a less reliable place for seeking truth and information. These phenomenon have only increased over the past decade, making the internet increasingly harmful and stupid (to be frank).

Filtering Dirty Water

Now more than ever we need to find ways to filter the information we are being exposed to online. Effective strategies you can employ include:
- Pay attention to your digital environment – Ideas and information can often seep into our brain without us even realizing it, especially when we are consistently exposed to the same information over and over again. What are the top five websites you visit? Where do you go for news and current events? What’s your social media feed look like? All of these make up a part of your digital environment which is having an influence on you whether you realize it or not, so pay close attention to the types of online spaces you’re spending time in.
- High value vs. low value information – Not all information is created equal. A random social media post that goes viral doesn’t have the same level of rigor as a peer-reviewed study. The information pyramid is a helpful guideline for assessing what information sources tend to be more trustworthy, accurate, and high value. Please note that this doesn’t mean a social media post is always wrong, or a scientific study is always right, just that one source tends to have more substance than another and you should generally give it more weight.
- Be your own fact-checker – Too many people take funny memes, shocking screenshots, and catchy headlines at face value without ever digging deeper. This causes a lot of misinformation and disinformation to go viral, and it can also lead to some comical and embarrassing errors (“You actually believed that?!”). While there are many professional “fact checkers” on various sites, even those can be misleading and ideologically motivated. Unfortunately, in our low trust information world, there’s only one fact-checker you can really count on and that’s yourself. Learn how to double-check sources, dig up original links, and read full articles so you understand the context before accepting something as true.
- Learn basic statistical literacy – Numbers can be very persuasive on a purely psychological level; if someone can make a claim with a statistic to back it, we tend to automatically think it must be true. However, statistics and graphs can be easily manipulated and deceptive. Understanding basic statistical literacy (such as knowing “correlation doesn’t mean causation,” or checking the “y” and “x” axis before looking at a graph) can give you a clearer idea of what a number is really telling you, and what is just being speculated, guessed, or misunderstood.
- Beware of personality-driven consumption – Many people get their news and information from famous personalities such as news commentators, celebrities, influencers, or podcasters. While it’s natural to listen to people we like and trust, this can backfire when we end up mindlessly accepting information rather than confirming it on its own merit. For many, there’s an entertainment factor too: it’s fun to root for your “leader/clan” and make fun of the other “leaders/clans,” some people even form parasocial relationships with their favorite personalities, seeing them as a type of best friend. However, what often happens in these hyper personality-driven spaces is that they devolve into petty drama and gossip. That may be “fun” to participate in for some people, but it’s not education.
If you keep these guidelines in mind, you’ll be able to navigate the dirty waters of the internet more effectively and hopefully find some springs of fresh and clean water to drink from.

Conclusion

Truth and reliable information are vital commons that underpin a healthy and functional society. Just as communities must manage natural resources responsibly to avoid the tragedy of the commons, societies must actively protect and nurture the integrity of their information ecosystems. Each of us plays a role in managing the information commons and minimizing information pollution.

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Steven Handel

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August 9, 2024
Northwestern Medicine will host educational open house for Black Maternal Health Week 2024

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CHICAGO (WLS) — Black Maternal Health Week is April 11-17 nationwide.

According to the White House, Black women are three times more likely to face health risks during pregnancy than other races.

There are efforts being made to change these statistics.

Dr. Jacqueline Hairston, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine, joined ABC7 Chicago Monday to talk about why Black Maternal Health Week is important.

“April is National Minority Health Month, and, in honor of that, the organization Black Mamas Matter started Black Maternal Health week to not only bring to the forefront the alarming statistics that we really need to change, but also to celebrate the organizations that are doing something about it,” she said.

Hairston said Black women often face health risks, like high blood pressure and fibroids, that can affect delivery.

SEE ALSO: Black Maternal Health Week raises awareness of Black women’s maternal mortality rate in US

Northwestern Medicine uses education to help women understand their circumstances during pregnancy and birth.

The hospital is hosting an education session and open house for expectant mothers Wednesday from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Prentice Women’s Hospital.

“What we’re doing is having our doctors, our nurses, our midwives coming to discuss the hot topics that Black women have brought to us,” Hairston said.

The event will include tours of the hospitals’ labor and delivery floors, meet and greets with Northwestern obstetrics and gynecology clinicians, and discussions about pregnancy myths with professionals.

Hairston said the event is open to all birthing people, including those who are facing infertility and postpartum mothers. Attendees do not have to be Northwestern Medicine patients. Registration is required at news.nm.org.

Northwestern Medicine is also sponsoring EverThrive, Illinois’ Community Baby Shower. They are collecting new packs of baby wipes, digital baby thermometers and monetary donations until Wednesday. Drop off locations and times can be found here.

Copyright © 2024 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.

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WLS

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April 15, 2024
City councilor calls library cost estimate ‘almost dishonest’

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BEVERLY — A city councilor accused Mayor Mike Cahill’s administration of being “almost dishonest” about the cost of a proposed library project that has ballooned to $18 million.

In a public hearing at City Hall on Monday night, Ward 1 Councilor Todd Rotondo criticized city officials for telling city councilors two years ago that the project would cost $3.75 million. Cahill is now asking the council to approve the project at a cost of $18 million.

“It wasn’t with malicious intent but it really was almost dishonest,” Rotondo said of the original $3.75 million estimate. “We weren’t presented a whole picture of the project originally.”

The comment prompted a heated exchange with Mike Collins, the city’s director of public services and engineering.

“I’m curious, were you insinuating that we were lying to you?” Collins asked Rotondo. “That’s the way I heard it.”

“I don’t think I said that,” Rotondo responded. “What I said was, well, OK yes, I would say that then.”

Rotondo said everyone he’s spoken with about the project assumed that the $3.75 million was a high price, but was the full scope of the project.

“So it almost is a little distrustful, yes,” he said to Collins. “So I’m sorry if that’s the way you feel, but yes it’s not a full truth.”

“It’s not how I feel, it’s how you feel, so I just wanted to clarify that,” Collins said.

The City Council did not take a vote on the project Monday night, instead continuing the public hearing until its next meeting on March 18.

The project calls for installing a new geothermal heating and cooling system at the Beverly Public Library on Essex Street as well as other improvements to the building. City officials say the HVAC system is failing and the building lacks humidity control, an important feature in the storage of historic records.

The City Council approved an initial $2 million for the project in June 2022 based on an estimated cost of $3.75 million. But when the project came back before the council in January, councilors were told the cost was now $18 million.

Rotondo asked Collins why the original estimate did not include such costs as accessibility upgrades and other “soft costs.” Collins said that estimate was “just a relative cost comparison of different options” and “wasn’t a fully developed project.”

“What we were asking for was money to pursue developing the selected option out to its fullest extent so that we could then come back to the council with a fully developed project and request funding,” Collins said.

Members of the project team hired by the city spent nearly two hours presenting details of the project. Bryant Ayles, the city’s finance director, said the city can afford to borrow money for the library as well as for two other upcoming renovation projects, to City Hall and the McPherson Youth Center.

The library project is in line to receive about $7.8 million in grants, incentives and credits under various energy programs, significantly reducing the cost for the city, officials said. They said the proposed geothermal system, which involves installing a “geothermal well field” under the library parking lot, will reduce the city’s greenhouse gas footprint.

“It will give us the best overall project and the lowest total operating costs and the lowest cost of ownership over the life of the project,” Collins said. “I still stand by that.”

If the City Council approves the project, construction would start in August and the library would be closed for six to eight months during construction, according to the project team’s presentation.

Beatrice Heinze, a Conant Street resident who spoke as part of the public hearing, said she thinks geothermal systems are “wonderful.” But she questioned the cost of the project, noting that as a taxpayer she is also paying for the credits and incentives that the city would receive.

“I take $18 million out of this pocket to Beverly. Then I take $8 million out of this pocket to the feds to give back to Beverly. Then I pay a big added-on to my National Grid bill to give a carbon credit back to Beverly,” Heinze said.

Ward 5 Councilor Kathleen Feldman said she believes the geothermal system “still makes the most sense long-term for our city.” “But the sticker shock was a lot for all of us to handle,” she said.

Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.

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By Paul Leighton | Staff Writer

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February 27, 2024
Canadian Gambling Statistics & Trends 2024: Analyzing Betting Habits – Southwest Journal
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Gambling in Canada is a popular activity, with a significant portion of the population engaging in some form of wagering, from buying lottery tickets to betting on sports events.

In this post, we’ll examine the habits, statistics, and trends shaping the Canadian gambling landscape. We aim to make the complexities of the gambling industry easy to grasp for everyone, regardless of their prior knowledge on the subject.

Who Gambles in Canada?

A staggering 75% of Canadians have dabbled in gambling. With a population of around 40 million people, this is no small number. This broad participation encompasses everything from casual lottery ticket purchases to more frequent casino visits.

Interestingly, lottery tickets emerge as the favored choice among gamblers, with a 65% participation rate. However, despite this widespread engagement, only a small fraction of the population, 2%, struggle with gambling problems.

How Much Is Spent on Gambling?

The Canadian gambling industry saw its market shrink to $12.54 billion in 2021. Ontario, with its vast population of gamblers, leads in both revenue and losses. Notably, the online gambling market is on an upswing and is projected to see user penetration soar to 51% by 2027.

What Are the Preferred Forms of Gambling?
- Lottery Tickets: Dominating the gambling scene with a 65% participation rate.
- Sports Betting: Accounts for 7.9% of gambling activities, with a notable skew towards male participants.
- Online Casinos: With a user penetration rate of 35.7%.
For those curious about the best-paying online casinos in Canada, comprehensive lists and analyses are the best method for shedding light on this. Finding out where players can find the most favorable payout rates and what makes these sites stand out in terms of returns is crucial. Make sure to choose wisely which one has the best option, so you can be sure you’re heading to the right place.

Trends and Changes

The gambling sector is not static; it evolves with societal and technological shifts. During lockdown periods, for instance, 17% of gamblers switched to online platforms. This migration underscores the growing appeal and accessibility of internet-based gambling options.

Key Statistics and Insights

Gambling Revenue and Market Size
- Ontario’s Lead: As the gambling hotspot of Canada, Ontario’s large gambler population significantly contributes to its revenue and losses.
- Market Size: The entire sector was valued at $12.54 billion in 2021, indicating the substantial economic footprint of gambling in Canada.
Sports Betting and Online Gambling
- Sports Betting Landscape: While it makes up 7.9% of gambling activities, a significant 57% of its revenue in 2019 came from non-regulated entities.
- Online Gambling Growth: Expected to expand significantly, reaching a 51% user penetration rate by 2027.
The Impact of Gambling
- Problem Gambling: Affecting 2% of Canadians 15 and older, problem gambling remains a critical issue, with those afflicted losing an average of over $500,000 annually.
- Indigenous Communities: These communities report higher rates of gambling participation and related problems.
Financial Aspects
- Casino Revenue: Canadians spent a whopping $17 billion in casinos across the country.
- Illegal Betting: An estimated $10 billion is spent on single sporting events through illegal channels.
Indigenous Communities and Gambling

The higher rates of gambling participation and problem gambling in Indigenous communities call for culturally sensitive and accessible support services.

Understanding the unique challenges faced by these communities is essential in developing effective prevention and treatment programs.

The Digital Transformation

The digital transformation of gambling has broadened access and introduced new forms of gaming, such as eSports betting and virtual casinos.

These innovations offer exciting opportunities but also present new challenges, particularly in terms of regulation and the prevention of underage gambling. Ensuring that digital platforms operate within a framework that promotes fairness and protects users from harm is paramount.

The Economic Impact

Gambling is a significant economic driver in Canada, with billions spent in casinos and on other gambling activities annually. The sector’s contribution to the economy is substantial, providing jobs, revenue, and investments in public projects. However, the economic benefits must be balanced with the social costs, particularly the impact on individuals and families affected by problem gambling.

Regulation and the Future

As the gambling industry continues to evolve, so too must the regulatory framework that governs it. Ensuring a fair, safe, and responsible gambling environment requires ongoing collaboration between regulators, operators, and the community.

The challenge lies in adapting to technological advancements, changing consumer habits, and the growing online market, all while protecting those most at risk.

Economic Contributions vs. Social Costs

The gambling industry’s contributions to the Canadian economy are significant, from generating tax revenue to creating employment opportunities. However, the social costs of problem gambling can offset these benefits.

A balanced perspective is necessary to ensure that the economic advantages do not come at the expense of individuals’ well-being. Policies and practices that prioritize responsible gambling can help achieve this balance.

Responsible Gambling Initiatives

Responsible gambling initiatives are crucial in mitigating the risks associated with gambling. These include setting limits on bets, time spent gambling, and providing clear information on the odds of winning.

Equally important are the programs designed to identify and assist those showing signs of problem gambling. Initiatives like these not only help individuals but also serve to maintain the integrity and social acceptability of the gambling industry.

FAQs

How Does Gambling Affect the Canadian Economy?

Gambling contributes significantly to the Canadian economy, generating billions in revenue. However, it also poses challenges, particularly when considering the losses incurred by individuals struggling with gambling addiction.

Who Gambles More, Men or Women?

Men are more inclined towards sports betting, with 12% participating in 2018. However, lottery tickets, a popular choice among all gamblers, do not show a significant gender disparity in participation rates.

What’s Being Done About Problem Gambling?

Efforts to address problem gambling include awareness campaigns, support services, and regulatory measures aimed at protecting vulnerable populations. The challenge is balancing economic benefits with social responsibilities.

Are online gambling winnings taxable in Canada?

No, gambling winnings are generally not taxable in Canada. The exception is if you earn interest on those winnings, which is taxable.

Can tourists participate in gambling activities in Canada?

Yes, tourists can participate in gambling activities, including visiting casinos and buying lottery tickets, just like Canadian residents.

How does Canada compare to the United States regarding gambling participation rates?

Canada has a higher percentage of the population participating in gambling compared to the United States, with differences in regulatory environments and available gambling options.

Are there any restrictions on advertising gambling in Canada?

Yes, there are restrictions on advertising gambling in Canada, aimed at protecting vulnerable groups and ensuring advertisements are not misleading.

Concluding Thoughts

Gambling in Canada is at a crossroads, with the potential for growth and innovation balanced by the need for responsible governance and support for those affected by gambling problems.

As we move forward, the focus must remain on creating a sustainable and ethical gambling industry that benefits the economy, respects the well-being of participants, and addresses the challenges of problem gambling with compassion and effectiveness.
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Oskar Zamora

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February 27, 2024
‘The New York Times’ misrepresented a shoddy study claiming private equity worsened hospital care

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“Serious Medical Errors Rose After Private Equity Firms Bought Hospitals” was the headline of a New York Times article looking at the findings of “a major study of the effects of such acquisitions on patient care in recent years” published in the December issue of JAMA. The paper was also written up in USA Today, MarketWatch, Common Dreams, and The Harvard Gazette.

“This is a big deal,” Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told Times reporters Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz. “It’s the first piece of data that I think pretty strongly suggests that there is a quality problem when private equity takes over.”

Abelson, Sanger-Katz, and their fellow reporters misrepresented the findings of the study, which suffers from its own “quality problems.”

Even its premise is fuzzy. The authors never say what they mean by “private equity,” which has no formal definition. Half of the hospitals in the study were already privately owned, for-profit hospitals before they were acquired. The authors suggest that what they call “private equity” is characterized by excessive leverage and short horizons, but present no data on either factor. Times readers may interpret the phrase private equity to mean “evil Wall Street greedheads,” in which case it seems logical that patient care would deteriorate.

Even the paper’s lead author started with that assumption. “We were not surprised there was a signal,” Massachusetts General Hospital’s Sneha Kannan told the Times. “I will say we were surprised at how strong it was.”

Bias was built into the study design. Research that looks only at “adverse” events and outcomes is designed to dig up dirt and will tend to come up with meaningless conclusions. Serious investigators study all events and outcomes—good and bad—in search of accurate, balanced conclusions.

The study’s strongest finding shows that lives were saved in hospitals acquired by private equity—the opposite of what Kannan expected to find. Patient mortality, the most important measure, dropped a statistically significant 9 percent in the study group, which represents nearly 500 lives saved.

The paper could have been headlined “Patient Mortality Fell After Private Equity Firms Bought Hospitals,” except JAMA might not have published it, The New York Times certainly wouldn’t have bothered to write it up, and Common Dreams couldn’t have run with the headline, “We Deserve Medicare for All, But What We Get Is Medicare for Wall Street.” So the study authors fell over themselves to explain this finding away. They theorized, without any evidence, that maybe private equity hospitals routinely transfer out patients who are near death. Though they raise legitimate reasons for skepticism that private equity acquisition saved patient lives, they apply equally to the negative findings that are trumpeted both in the study and the news write-ups.

Another one of the 17 measures the study authors looked at was length of stay. They found that at the private equity hospitals the duration of stays was a statistically significant 3.4 percent shorter, which was another finding the authors were quick to downplay.

Falls are the most common adverse events in hospitals, and the study found that they were more likely to occur in hospitals acquired by private equity. According to the Times, the “researchers reported…a 27 percent increase in falls by patients while staying in the hospital.”

This isn’t what the study says. The rate of falls stayed the same at hospitals after they were acquired by private equity at 0.068 percent. Falls didn’t decline at the rate that they did at hospitals in the control group—from 0.083 percent to 0.069 percent—which is where the 27 percent number came from.

In other words, the situation improved in the control group but didn’t get worse or better in hospitals acquired by private equity. So the authors assumed that there was some industrywide drop in hospital falls and that this positive trend didn’t take place at the private equity hospitals.

What this finding actually suggests is that the control hospitals were badly chosen and run worse (at least when it comes to preventing patient falls) than the acquired hospitals both before and after private equity acquisition. That falls could change by 27 percent without any cause (the control hospitals were not purchased by anyone) makes nonsense of claiming statistical significance for much smaller changes in other factors.

Let’s even assume that there was an industrywide decline in falls and that private equity hospitals didn’t see the improvement that would have taken place had their greedy new owners not been allowed to acquire them. If that improvement had taken place, there would have been 20 fewer falls in the study group. Doesn’t that matter less than the 500 deaths prevented—the stat that the authors chose to downplay?

The Times article mentions that bed sores increased at the private equity hospitals even though that wasn’t a statistically significant finding, meaning that there weren’t enough data included in the study to make that assertion. The study authors acknowledged that this finding wasn’t significant, but the Times journalists chose to report it anyway.

The study authors did claim that another one of their adverse findings was statistically significant: Bloodstream infections allegedly increased in private equity hospitals from about 65 cases to 99 cases. This is indeed serious, as such infections can easily be fatal. However, the finding had marginal statistical significance, meaning it was unlikely, but not completely implausible, to have arisen by random chance if private equity acquisition did not affect the rate of bloodstream infections. If the only hypothesis that the authors had tested was whether private equity acquisition increased bloodstream infections, then the finding would meet standard criteria for statistical significance.

If you run a fishing expedition for adverse events and outcomes, you are very likely to find some findings that occur by random chance. The authors were aware of this and adjusted the claimed significance of this result as if they had tested eight hypotheses. But the paper reported 17 measures, and the authors may have tested more. If we adjust for 17 hypotheses, the bloodstream infection result loses its statistical significance.

The rigorous way to do studies is to pre-register hypotheses to ensure that the authors can’t go fishing in a large amount of data to pick out a few conclusions that they like that happen to appear statistically significant by random chance. The authors did not report pre-registration.

So what can we conclude from this study? The Times reporters seem to have gone on a second fishing expedition, this one for a scholar willing to conclude from the study’s findings that we need more government regulation, or perhaps a ban on private equity hospital acquisitions. To their credit, none of the experts they quoted fully delivered, forcing the reporters to blandly conclude that the study “leaves some important questions unanswered for policymakers.”

“This should make us lean forward and pay attention,” was the best Yale economist Zack Cooper was willing to give Abelson and Sanger-Katz, adding that it shouldn’t lead us to “introduce wholesale policies yet.” Rice economist Vivian Ho told the Times that she “was eager to see more evidence.”

Setting out to find “more evidence” of a conclusion that researchers already believe to be true, instead of going where the data lead, is what leads to such sloppy and meaningless research in the first place.

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Aaron Brown

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January 5, 2024
CDC to Switch From Daily to Weekly COVID Data Updates

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Oct. 8, 2022 — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will start updating COVID-19 case and death counts on a weekly instead of a daily basis starting Oct. 20.
“To allow for additional reporting flexibility, reduce the reporting burden on states and jurisdictions, and maximize surveillance resources, CDC is moving to a weekly reporting cadence for line level and aggregate case and death data,” the CDC said Thursday.
The CDC is still providing daily data on COVID hospitalizations, using information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It’s unknown if that will change when the National Healthcare Safety Network takes responsibility for the collection of COVID hospital data mid-December, the CDC said.
The CDC has been publishing daily COVID data for more than two years. The CDC’s COVID community level ratings are already updated once a week, on Thursdays. State and local governments use community level ratings in deciding when and where citizens should be advised to wear masks.
The change is another sign of a de-escalation in COVID response as the major pandemic statistics drop. The New York Times reported that on Oct. 7 the United States was averaging 40,186 new COVID cases a day (a 26% drop over two weeks), 26,994 COVID-related hospitalizations (an 11% drop), and 380 COVID-related deaths (an 11% drop). Health experts say the case counts are actually higher because many home testing results are not reported to health agencies.
Earlier this week, the CDC announced it would no longer maintain a list of travel advisories for foreign countries because “fewer countries are testing or reporting COVID-19 cases,” The New York Times reported. Instead, the CDC will publish health notices when only for “a concerning Covid-19 variant” in a particular nation.
Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical advisor, said Tuesday that COVID cases may rise this winter, especially if a new COVID variant emerges.
“Although we can feel good that we’re going in the right direction, we can’t let our guard down,” Fauci said in a discussion hosted by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism. “We are entering into the winter months, where no matter what the respiratory disease is, there’s always a risk of an uptick.”

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October 8, 2022