DATA APPLICATION ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
OVERVIEW
Economists are known for their interest in data. Using data is instrumental for anyone in economics or business; however, using data is not always intuitive. Using data to make decisions requires practice. In this assignment, you will be searching for specific data from a valuable data source: FRED, the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank’s data repository sound, found in the Resources section of the assignment prompt.
INSTRUCTIONS
Follow the link above and type “median usual weekly nominal earnings” in the search bar. Choose the option on the list that comes up “Employed full time: Median usual weekly nominal earnings (second quartile): Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over”. When you click on this a graph will be automatically built for you. You need to make one small change to this data, so click on the dark orange “Edit Graph” button. A drop-down menu will appear. Under the “Modify frequency” option, click on the arrow next to “Quarterly”. Choose the “Annual” option. This will allow you to consistently compare the data for the other racial groups as the data will be reported over the same time-period. Now, you need to add some other data to your graph. If the edit menu is still open, choose the option to
“Add Line”. (If the edit menu is no longer open just click the dark orange “Edit Graph” button to open it.) In the search bar type “median usual weekly nominal earnings white”. Choose the option that appears
“Employed full time: Median usual weekly nominal earnings (second quartile): Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over: White”. NOTE: Be careful not to choose the “part time” data, or the data for the older
age categories. Now click “Add data series”. You should now have two lines in your graph.
Now, we are going to add three more series. This is done in the same way. You just need to search for the data. First, search for “median usual weekly nominal earnings black”. This will give you the data for Blacks. Choose the option for “Employed full time: Median usual weekly nominal earnings (second quartile): Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over: Black or African American”. Add this data series to your graph. This data is reported as quarterly, so you need to edit it so that it is annual. Chose the
“Modify frequency” drop down and make this change. Second, search for “median usual weekly nominal earnings Hispanic” for Hispanics. Choose the option for “Employed full time: Median usual weekly nominal earnings (second quartile): Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over: Hispanic or Latino”. This data is reported as quarterly, so you need to edit it so that it is annual. Chose the “Modify frequency” drop down and make this change. Add this data series to your graph.
Finally, search for “median usual weekly nominal earnings Asian” for Asians. Choose the option for “Employed full time: Median usual weekly nominal earnings (second quartile): Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over: Asian”. This data is reported as quarterly, so you need to edit it so that it is annual. Chose the “Modify frequency” drop down and make this change. Add this data series to your graph. You now have your completed graph. To make this a little easier to read you need to change the dates. Right above the graph are two boxes with dates. The first box says “1979-01-01”. This is the beginning of the data set. Change that box to read “2000-01-01”. This will change the graph from showing data since 1979, to showing it from 2000. Take a screen shot of your graph and add it to your Word document.
Now that you have the graph completed, you need to address the following prompts. You should provide a well written analysis of at least 200 words. It should be a well written paper, with a coherent flow. Do not answer these prompts in a series of bullet points. Use the following guidelines when composing your paper:
• Follow the instructions to build your graph. Screen shot the graph and add it to your submission.
• Identify the current wage difference between White and Black workers, White and Hispanic workers, and White and Asian workers. Specifically, what is this gap? How do the various racial groups relate to the overall median? (NOTE: To see the graph, hover over the lines with your
mouse and you will see gap between the racial groups.)
• Why do you think the wage gaps exist? Be specific. What are things that might create the differences in earnings between these racial groups? You may reference the text or other sources here but be sure to properly credit any sources in APA format. Include a list of these at the end of your work.
• How do you think these earnings gaps could be closed?
Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism to
https://fred.stlouisfed.org
