Useful Stats

The United States' 42 federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) received a record $26 billion in federal government funding in fiscal year 2022 — a nearly 6% increase compared to the previous year. FFRDCs expended $26.5 billion on R&D in FY 2022, marking the ninth consecutive year of nominal growth. On average, FFRDCs have increased R&D expenditures by 1.3% per annum since 2012. Yet when looking at only the three most recent years of available data, from FY 2020-2022, this average drops to just 0.4%.

FFRDCs are independent, non-governmental, entities — typically universities or nonprofits — that federal agencies contract with to conduct R&D. FFRDCs provide their supporting federal agencies with R&D capabilities that could not otherwise be effectively completed by the federal government or private sector alone, according to the Congressional Research Service.

SSTI has released a new data tool that defines investment activity, one indicator of the vibrancy of a region’s innovation economy, in each of 18 technology areas. Comprising two interactive visuals and a downloadable data file, this tool includes the number of investment-backed companies, investment deals, and amount of capital invested by state, year (2013-June 2023), and investment stage (e.g., seed, angel, venture) for technology verticals that were selected to align with many of the key technology areas defined in the CHIPS and Science Act and included in the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) Tech Hubs program.

Image of the state-level investment data visualization.

With a GDP of over $23 trillion in 2021, the United States has the world's largest economy, according to the latest available data from the World Bank. Yet, the U.S. falls behind such countries as Israel and Korea when it comes to how much is spent on research and development (R&D) in proportion to GDP. For example, Israel and Korea spend 5.56% and 4.93% of their GDP on R&D compared to the U.S.’ 3.46%.

GDP is the sum of a region’s economic output, measuring economic productivity and innovation capacity. R&D is the process of generating new knowledge to create a novel product, service, or method. This article uses national expenditures on R&D calculated as a percentage of GDP to provide a standardized metric of R&D intensity. Later, a breakdown of the performing sectors of R&D is provided.

Exploring these metrics allows for establishing a benchmark of competitiveness. This article uses data from the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Data includes GDP, gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) as a percentage of GDP, and GERD by performing sector from 1960-2022 when available.

It appears that innovation is contagious. Maps reveal that once there is a concentration of patents granted to inventors in one U.S. county, innovation starts to percolate in neighboring counties. And the phenomenon isn’t found only in established life sciences hubs like San Diego or Boston. SSTI observed this spillover effect in Washtenaw County, Michigan and Hennepin County, Minnesota, among other places. These data suggest that when a strong base is located, likely due to new companies and startups establishing themselves, innovation lays down its roots and spreads to other counties.

SSTI used the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) utility patent data from 1998-2020 across industries to draw insights such as how innovation in the life sciences spreads locally. Our analysis and maps for 22 years of life science-related shows clustering in areas where one would expect it, but also in areas of the country where it might be less expected.

A new data analysis of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) by SSTI indicates again the significant impact the pandemic had on the manufacturing sector. While job openings in manufacturing ranged on a monthly basis from 0.8 to 3.9% of total manufacturing employment in the 20 years prior to the pandemic, it jumped to as much as 7.4% in April 2022. Job openings in manufacturing increased dramatically after the pandemic, presumably as a result of the American economy attempting to adjust for disrupted supply chains and a move to bring more manufacturing back to the U.S. Only education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and professional and business services had job opening rates consistently higher.  For the economy as a whole, a review of the JOLTS data finds the number of job openings is still significantly higher than pre-covid levels, but is on a decreasing trend.  

In anticipation of America's Seed Fund week on May 15-18, 2023, this article will explore the last 10 years of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program award data. These data cover all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

SBIR is a highly competitive awards-based program that funds small businesses to support R&D projects with potential for commercialization. Eleven federal agencies participate in the SBIR program, each with varying budgets, requirements, and goals.

Availability of a new data tool developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that during the period surrounding the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was wide variation among the states on the ratio of unemployed persons per job opening.  Michigan peaked at 10.6 unemployed persons for each job opening, followed by Hawaii (10.3) and Nevada (10.2), far above most states, while others like D.C. (1.7) and Nebraska (2.1) and North Dakota (2.2) remained relatively unaffected. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) program developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a monthly survey that collects data on job openings, hirings and separations both on a national and state-level.

A new Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) release shows that over the past five years of available data (2018-2022), nationwide per capita personal income increased by 21.64%, rising from $53,786 to $65,423, with an average yearly percentage change of +5.04%. While personal income grew 23.39% during this period, from around $17.67 trillion to $21.80 trillion (+5.41% per year on average), this article will focus solely on per capita personal income, examining both nationwide and interstate trends from 2018-2022 with an emphasis on uncovering the impacts of the pandemic.

The objective of the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) is to help states receiving the least amount of federal research and development (R&D) funds within their postsecondary institutions improve their competitiveness for federal grants and awards. A measure of EPSCoR's effectiveness, then, is whether or not the state's academic research enterprise is capturing a larger share of federal R&D expenditures. This article utilizes data from the Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey, analyzing the total and federal HERD dollars for the 25 current EPSCoR eligible states compared to those not eligible, finding: 1) EPSCoR states are not receiving proportionately more federal HERD dollars and 2) EPSCoR states have an extremely large variation of total HERD dollars between states, inclusive of both the highest grossing states as well as all three states experiencing a decrease.

Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 saw higher education research and development (R&D) spending increase by a total of $3.43 billion (3.97%) over the prior year — a higher rate of growth than the 10-year average of +3.53% per year — and $23.99 billion (36.51%) over the past 10-years. Using data from the most recent release of the Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey, this article will analyze state-level trends on higher education R&D expenditures, revealing the aforementioned increased expenditures, although strong, are barely keeping pace with the nation’s overall economic growth.

From 2002-2021 (the last 20 years for which data is available), the total U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP adjusted for inflation, or Real GDP) increased by approximately 45%, from $13.5 trillion to $19.6 trillion in chained 2012 dollars. On a per capita basis, county-level real GDP increased by an average of 36% over the past 20 years, with a range of growth from -77% (Brooks County, Texas) to 3,950% (Culberson County, Texas).

Across the country, 2,539 counties experienced an increase in real GDP per capita growth between 2002 and 2021. The plurality were located in Texas (192 counties), (Texas alone has 8% of all U.S. counties), followed by Kansas (100), Georgia (97), Iowa (96), Montana (93) and Nebraska (92).

This edition of Useful Stats takes a high-level look at the United States’ change in Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP, which is GDP adjusted for inflation) on a per capita basis for each of its counties, boroughs, parishes, etc. (hereon referred to as “counties”). Looking at RGDP per capita allows for an inflation adjusted, population standardized metric for comparing counties over time.

This article explores the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ (BEA) most recent data release for all industries. RDGP per capita is calculated using BEA’s county-level population data, which uses Census Bureau midyear population estimates. This data can be found at the end of this article.