Stories
Lottery ticket sales nearly doubled to $104.7 billion, and states now keep 33 cents of each dollar
State lottery sales rose from $52.8 billion in fiscal 2008 to $104.7 billion in 2024, Census data show. Prizes grew 118 percent, so states kept 33 percent of sales, down from 39 percent.
The fastest-gentrifying places in America are small towns, not big cities
Triana, Alabama, went from 499 residents to 3,964 in a decade, and its bachelor's share nearly doubled. Across 6,646 places, 11 of the 12 fastest-gentrifying are towns under 20,000 people.
Business applications hit a September record, and hiring plans ticked up for the first time this year
Americans filed 534,947 business applications in September, the most for any September since 2004. Applications with planned wages rose for the first time in 2026, and Missouri jumped 22.1 percent.
The most populated ZIP code in every state, led by Katy's 77494
Katy, Texas's 77494 has 140,157 residents, the most of any ZIP code in America, just ahead of Lakewood, New Jersey's 08701. Here is the biggest ZIP code in all 50 states and D.C.
Nearly 56,000 comments filed on the 2030 census noncitizen rule as critics expect a court fight
The proposal to leave noncitizens without green cards out of the 2030 apportionment count has drawn 55,915 public comments. The deadline moved to November 2, and opponents say the rule will likely end up in court.
Women earned 84 cents for every dollar men made in 2025, Census says
The female-to-male earnings ratio for full-time workers rose to 83.9 percent in 2025, the first significant gain since 2016. Since 1960, women's full-time earnings have more than doubled after inflation.
American household income reaches all-time high of $87,460
U.S. median household income rose 2.6 percent after inflation to $87,460 in 2025, the highest since records began in 1967. Black households gained 4.8 percent, and women's full-time earnings rose 3.2 percent.
The New York metro area has 20.1 million people, and all its growth is outside the city
The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area had 20,112,448 residents in 2025. New York City lost about 220,000 people since 2020 while every suburban county grew.
The most and least unequal counties in America
The US Gini index is 0.476. Manhattan is 0.598, the highest of any large county, and Paulding County, Georgia is 0.359. Manhattan and New Orleans reach nearly the same number for opposite reasons.
Medicaid covers one in three New Mexico residents, compared with one in nine in Utah
About one in five Americans has Medicaid or similar public coverage. New Mexico has the highest share at 33.5 percent and Utah the lowest at 10.9 percent, according to Census Bureau survey data.
Where do the most Turkish Americans live?
About 255,200 Americans report Turkish ancestry. New York, California, and New Jersey have the most, and 66.1 percent of Turkish American adults hold a bachelor's degree.
How the census counts Hispanic Americans, and why Hispanic is not a race on the form
The census asks about Hispanic origin and race in two separate questions, so Hispanic Americans can be of any race. Since 2020, most report two or more races or some other race, not white alone.
The counties with the most 90-degree days, and Texas holds 49 of the top 56
Yuma County, Arizona, and Imperial County, California, each had 156 days of 90-degree heat in 2022, the most of any US county. Texas has 49 of the 56 counties that had at least 90 such days.
Menin and James join forces against Trump's 2030 census plan
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Attorney General Letitia James will file comments opposing the 2030 census proposal and want the October 13 comment deadline extended.
The most popular baby names of every decade since the 1880s
Mary was the top girl name every decade from the 1880s to the 1950s, and Michael the top boy name from the 1960s to the 1990s. Today's leaders are Olivia and Liam.
The richest ZIP codes in America, and why the Census stops counting at $250,000
Sixty-two ZIP codes hit the Census Bureau's income ceiling, so their real medians are unpublished. Ranked by home value, the list is dominated by Silicon Valley, the New York suburbs, and Boston.
Police raid Japanese city hall over claims officials padded Census numbers
Japan accuses officials in Toyama of adding at least 2,000 people to the city's 2025 census count, which may have brought in about 60 million yen in extra national funding. The country's population fell 2.5 percent since 2020.
Seven reasons dropping census questions would leave the US data-blind
The 2030 census proposal would stop asking about race and ethnicity. Civil rights laws, district maps, $2.8 trillion in federal funding formulas, and a 240-year record all depend on those answers.
The Most Expensive Neighborhoods in America
We ranked the wealthiest neighborhoods across 100 cities by household income and contrasted them with the poorest. The data caps the rich at a ceiling, so the real gap is even wider than it looks.
Factory orders edged up in August as business equipment orders rose 1.6%
New orders for manufactured goods rose 0.1 percent to $663.5 billion in August. Core capital goods orders climbed 1.6 percent while aircraft orders fell, and the order backlog reached $1.61 trillion.
Where do the most Haitian Americans live?
About 1.13 million Americans report Haitian ancestry, and nearly half live in Florida. North Miami, where 36.2 percent of residents are Haitian American, has the highest share of any city.