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Steven Ruggles

@stevenruggles.bsky.social
303 followers 91 following 422 posts

Historical demographer and data impresario Wired profile: www.wired.com/1995/03/ruggles Publications: users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggl001 Data: www.ipums.org

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Reposted by Steven Ruggles
IPUMS @ipums.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A huge congratulations to Ellora Derenoncourt on being named a 2026 MacArthur Fellow! We've been following her impressive work for years. A very well deserved honor. bit.ly/4dx5kGX
macfound.org
Ellora Derenoncourt
Uncovering the roots and ongoing drivers of racial disparities in wealth and income mobility in the United States.
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Wes Burdine @wesburdine.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Minnesota getting a representative from the place where all the inbred ICE dipshits come from is just the first step of reparations.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I suspected this. They are so incredibly stupid. Trump’s Census Proposal Could Cut House Seats From Red States www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
Trump’s Census Proposal to Exclude Some Immigrants Could Cut Seats From Red States
A Trump administration proposal to block some immigrants from the 2030 census could shift congressional seats away from Republican states, a New York Times analysis found.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Senator Roger Marshall is up for re-election (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/u...
It was Easter weekend in 2007 when a police car pulled up to Joe Vasquez’s home in rural Kansas.

A doctor had filed a lawsuit against him and his wife over an unpaid $4,561 bill from her emergency hysterectomy three years earlier. They had missed a court date, and the doctor’s lawyers asked the court to issue an arrest warrant.

The police took the couple into custody as their grandchildren prepared for an egg hunt, Mr. Vasquez said. They spent two days in jail before their son could borrow the money to post bond.

“We had no money to pay,” said Mr. Vasquez, now 68. At the time, his wife was working at a manufacturing plant and he was on disability, he said.

The doctor who sued the couple was Roger Marshall, now a senator from Kansas. Mr. Marshall, a Republican who is seeking re-election this fall, filed lawsuits against more than 700 patients with outstanding bills during his decades-long career as an obstetrician-gynecologist, according to a New York Times analysis of Kansas court records.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
What I meant was that in the final implementation of 2020 DP the epsilon was so high that the noise infusion had only minor consequences for usability. But it is truly crazy paranoid to think that any version of DP was biased against Repubs. More here: pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I argued in the Journal of Economic Perspectives that DP was a huge mistake for the Census and I hope we do not go back there. But you have to be seriously stupid to think that DP is somehow biased against republicans. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
"I mean, that’s just dumb" Steven Ruggles, a professor at the University of Minnesota
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I did say this: “crazy, insane, right-wing conspiracy theories that somehow differential privacy and disclosure control more broadly is somehow biased towards Democrats or something — I mean, that’s just dumb" 1/2
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Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Amy O’Hara wrote up a longer piece on all of the red flags in the ‘Census’ report on noncitizen voting. mdi.georgetown.edu/response-to-...
mdi.georgetown.edu
Dissecting the “Beginning Analysis” of Noncitizen Voting - Massive Data Institute
Author: Amy O’Hara,  Director of the Massive Data Institute at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University Rigorous scientific research into voting in U.S. elections consistently finds ...
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Mike Schneider @mikeysid.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
No researcher’s name is on Census Bureau report Trump uses to claim the 2020 election was stolen countofcounting.substack.com/p/no-researc...
countofcounting.substack.com
No researcher’s name is on Census Bureau report Trump uses to claim the 2020 election was stolen
NO STATISTICIAN OR researcher at the U.S.
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IPUMS @ipums.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Check out this workshop held tomorrow by the NIA, Big Data to Big Insights: Challenges and Opportunities in Aging and AD/ADRD Research, featuring David Van Riper. Experts will explore how the expansion of large-scale data resources is reshaping research on aging and AD/ADRD bit.ly/3S8NWkd
nia.nih.gov
Big Data to Big Insights: Challenges and Opportunities in Aging and AD/ADRD Research
Read about, and register, for a one-day online workshop about large-scale data resources that are reshaping research on aging and Alzheimer's and related dementias.
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Reposted by Steven Ruggles
Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
This graph from our new paper on the invention of microdata shows the involvement of PAA presidents with the Census Bureau from 1930 to 2019. The tiny grey bar on the right of the graph represents me. 1/2
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Mike Schneider @mikeysid.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
countofcounting.substack.com/p/census-bur...
countofcounting.substack.com
Census Bureau needs to figure out how to land the plane after Commerce Department’s order on privacy methods
WHAT’S AMAZING ABOUT the Commerce Department’s recent decision to restrict the types of privacy protections statistical agencies can use is how little consideration there was to its real-world impacts...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
This graph from our new paper on the invention of microdata shows the involvement of PAA presidents with the Census Bureau from 1930 to 2019. The tiny grey bar on the right of the graph represents me. 1/2
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
This graph from our new paper on the invention of microdata shows the involvement of PAA presidents with the Census Bureau from 1930 to 2019. The tiny grey bar on the right of the graph represents me. 1/2
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Reposted by Steven Ruggles
Demography - the flagship journal of PAA @readdemography.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
In “Equally Available to Anyone,” @dldmagnuson.bsky.social & @stevenruggles.bsky.social describe the story of the invention of the 1st microdata sample in interactions btw Census staff & PAA & how that collaboration “can be a model for preserving broad access." read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...
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dldmagnuson.bsky.social @dldmagnuson.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Who isn't curious about the invention of microdata?
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Reposted by Steven Ruggles
A Jean Stevenson @amandajean.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Our colleagues at the Census Bureau and elsewhere in the federal government are *critical* to demography! They always have been and we abandon and ignore them at our own peril!
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Nice endorsement from the top Census historian! Thanks Margo!
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Curious about the invention of microdata? Our new paper in Demography reveals the story. doi.org/10.1215/0070...
Graph of involvement of PAA presidents with the Census Bureau, 1930-2019. Peak involvement was 1950-1969.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
IPUMS BBQ today.
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Reposted by Steven Ruggles
Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
My paper on the "Pig in the Python" is now available with no paywall from NIH. I argue that the demand for young workers will grow dramatically over the coming decades, likely leading to rising wages, stronger unions, and lower inequality. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
My paper on the "Pig in the Python" is now available with no paywall from NIH. I argue that the demand for young workers will grow dramatically over the coming decades, likely leading to rising wages, stronger unions, and lower inequality. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I suspect your experience is unusual for most of Minneapolis. I walk two miles to work through the Glendale housing project and the dense commercial district of Washington Avenue, and I've never seen a syringe.
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Kari Williams @kcww.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
@stevenruggles.bsky.social captivates #DIRC2026 participants with his keynote address, The Book of Life: Building National Longitudinal Research Infrastructure. @umnlifecourse.bsky.social @ipums.bsky.social
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Elizabeth Wrigley-Field @wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
New working paper from Ritikaa Khanna, @rourkeobrien.bsky.social, @astokespop.bsky.social, @atheendar.bsky.social, & me We apply a new lens to the great (non-Covid) debate of US mortality studies: What's up w the 2010s? It emphasizes that US longevity worsened against a background of increasing $$
nber.org
The U.S. Mortality Crisis as a Preston Curve Reversal
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
I don't get the relevance of Minnesota's white population, but they put my picture in the paper today. www.startribune.com/ramstad-why-...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
This graph is OK, but the longer run view broken down by sex is more compelling /1 www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...
wsj.com
Why AI Might Actually Help Solve the Next Labor Crisis
New economic research might be pointing toward a shift in thinking about what AI means for the job market.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
WSJ on my Pig in the Python paper in PNAS!
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
conversableeconomist.com/2026/06/15/h...
conversableeconomist.com
How Will Boomer Retirement Affect Jobs for Young Adults? - Conversable Economist
The "baby boom" generation, made up of Americans born from after World War II up into the early 1960s, is sometimes called the "pig in the python" of US demographics. The pig started moving into retir...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
The Fortune article misses the point.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Gift link: users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggl001/Ar...
users.pop.umn.edu
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Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
"The pig in the python: US decennial labor flows and economic opportunity, 1910–2040" www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... "Projections to 2040 show that we are on the verge of a radical reshaping of labor markets in which new workers will be in extremely short supply."
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Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
There’s a tweet for everything
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B Jarosz @datageekb.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
And I'm not the only one who's personally affected by this bonkers new prohibition on using modern privacy methods. The number of researchers whose work is now suspended until further notice is... 👀
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
If the Census Bureau eliminates whole-household imputation, it will hurt Republicans, because census non-response rates are higher in Republican areas and imputation helps fix that. www.yahoo.com/news/politic...
yahoo.com
Census Bureau plans 2030 count as 2020 lawsuit continues
(The Center Square) – The Census Bureau is planning for 2030, making decisions that will shape the distribution of federal funding that topped $2. 8 trillion in fiscal year 2021, even as lawsuits over...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
conversableeconomist.com/2026/06/15/h...
conversableeconomist.com
How Will Boomer Retirement Affect Jobs for Young Adults? - Conversable Economist
The "baby boom" generation, made up of Americans born from after World War II up into the early 1960s, is sometimes called the "pig in the python" of US demographics. The pig started moving into retir...
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Reposted by Steven Ruggles
Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) @hansilowang.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
NEW: The Census Bureau has two new deputy directors — Michael Lachanski as deputy director for data, policy and science, and John Studds as deputy director for administration and operations www.census.gov/newsroom/pre...
census.gov
Census Bureau Announces Appointment of Two New Deputy Directors
Dr. Michael Lachanski and John Studds Named as Deputy Directors for the Census Bureau.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Preparing ISRDI BBQ in the rain photos.app.goo.gl/nzgjT9j42quS...
photos.app.goo.gl
New video · Wednesday, Jun 10 🎬
Tap to view!
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
The Fortune article cites my PNAS paper but ignores my argument.
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B Jarosz @datageekb.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
The concern is that this affects EVERYTHING. RDC projects. Special tabs. Small area estimates. Public microdata. Block level 2030 census counts may not be possible. 2020 dp was annoying. This is scorched earth on *everything.*
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/o... Of course.
nytimes.com
Opinion | The States Where Life Is Better
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
The Pig is departing the Python. Gift link: users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggl001/Ar... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com · 03/06/2026
The Star Tribune employs around 495 people and the cuts will be made across every department. The newsroom has just under 200 journalists and will decline to about 175 while remaining one of the largest between the coasts.
startribune.com
Minnesota Star Tribune cuts jobs and pursues nonprofit ownership structure
The decision to cut 65 jobs underscores the news industry’s ongoing challenges.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
My paper on the Pig in the Python is now free of copyediting errors! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Gift link: www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Art...
pnas.org
The pig in the python: US decennial labor flows and economic opportunity, 1910–2040 | PNAS
This analysis revisits the relative cohort size hypothesis proposed by demographer Richard Easterlin in the 1960s. Easterlin argued that the econom...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
My paper on the Pig in the Python is now free of copyediting errors! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Gift link: www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Art...
pnas.org
The pig in the python: US decennial labor flows and economic opportunity, 1910–2040 | PNAS
This analysis revisits the relative cohort size hypothesis proposed by demographer Richard Easterlin in the 1960s. Easterlin argued that the econom...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Here's another mangling of my "Pig in the Python" paper. I argued that boomers departures will likely lead to higher wages and reduced inequality for the young. This person says "The generation that made it hard to find a good job for four decades is now making it hard to find workers at all."
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
A new article in Fortune Magazine manages to twist my optimistic interpretation of the "Pig in the Python" into a dystopian catastrophe. Labor shortages are generally a good thing, at least from the perspective of the laborers. /1 fortune.com/2026/05/25/b...
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datahistorian.bsky.social @datahistorian.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Blame it on AI? reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/viral-p...
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk
A viral profile made him a lightning rod for journalism’s AI anxieties. He sees himself as a trailblazer
“It should be a journalist’s dream to have machines gather raw material quickly for you to check,” says Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg in this wide-ranging interview.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
This article completely misinterprets my new paper on "The Pig in the Python." I argue that the the demand for young workers will grow dramatically over the coming decades, likely leading to rising wages, stronger unions, and lower inequality. /1 www.msn.com/en-us/money/...
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