Facts USA: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Stimulus Spending, Changes to Higher Ed, and Women Elected to Congress

Easy to see:

How might Americans spend their next stimulus? The recently passed American Rescue Plan Act comes with a new round of stimulus checks. People making less than $75,000 a year are eligible for up to $1,400 in this third round of pandemic relief. How might they spend the checks? The Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey offers some insight based on how people used the $600 stimulus checks sent earlier this year. In the February 3–15 Household Pulse Survey, just over half of all adults said they live in households where someone received a stimulus payment within the previous week.   In the survey, 57% of respondents said at least part of the checks were used to pay for food, while 44% said part or all of the check would be used to pay for utilities.   About 62% of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black recipients used the money for paying down debt compared with 42% of Asian and 46% of white recipients. See more data about the pandemic nearly three months into 2021.   Women in Congress Last week’s newsletter shared that more women are serving in Congress than ever. USAFacts has additional context behind that number, including stats on representation dating back to the first woman in Congress 104 years ago. Read it all in this new report. Jeannette Rankin was the first woman in Congress, serving as a representative from Montana from 1917 to 1919. Since then, 393 more women have served in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. That's 3% of the 12,415 people who have served since 1789. The first woman elected to the Senate was Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas. She served two full terms after initially being appointed in 1931.   The total share of women in Congress doesn't match that of the US population (which is 51%), but it's increased in recent years. Today's Congress has more than double the number of women who served between 1999 and 2001.   Every state has sent a woman to Congress but one: Vermont. Track the upward trajectory of women representatives starting in the early 1990s and learn about the House's longest current woman rep at USAFacts.org.   College education by the numbers The State of the Union in Numbers helps Americans understand the nation from several angles, including the state of US education before and during the pandemic. How has COVID-19 altered college attendance? How are costs increasing for college students? Get the metrics here.  The average college tuition was $23,902 in 2016, a more than 80% increase since 1993 (adjusting for inflation).   Governments and institutions awarded students an average of $19,397 in grant aid in 2016 — almost twice the 1993 average. About 59 million adults lived with someone who planned to attend college in fall 2020, with over a third of them reporting that the student ultimately canceled their plans. Get additional context behind the history of US education, from reading proficiency to spending per student, with the State of the Union in Numbers.      And finally... Want to more on education in the US? Join USAFacts Founder Steve Ballmerand Research Manager Olivia Martin for a panel discussion with the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University on March 18. They'll discuss how COVID-19 has disrupted schooling and how data science will play an integral role in understanding the pandemic's short and long-term impacts. Register for the event here.