Which Americans are leaving their occupations? 

A common refrain throughout the pandemic has been that nurses are leaving their profession in record numbers. But does the data support that assertion? What about teachers — are they leaving? Or food servers? How about police officers? 

This new visual has the data on dozens of professions from 2017 to 2021. Dive in to see who is quitting to leave the workforce outright and who is moving on to another occupation.

• Higher-paying occupations have fewer workers who leave annually: 33% of restaurant servers left their field in 2021. Nine percent of physicians and surgeons did.
   
• On average, 13% of workers changed occupations between 2020 and 2021. The same rate went for 2019 and 2020 as well.
   
• From 2017 to 2021, the percentage of bartenders who left their occupation nearly doubled, from 17% to 33%. 
   
• In contrast, 93% of nurses remained nurses over the same period, 3% switched occupations, and 4% were not working. This is comparable to the rate of physicians and surgeons — 91% of whom remained.
   
• Human resource managers are leaving their profession in high numbers. Of those who said they were human resource managers in 2020, 26% no longer held that job in 2021. 

See where your profession ranks in this new visual.


What is budget reconciliation? 

Congress has a unique tool to change federal budget laws: reconciliation. This procedure allows Congress to avoid Senate filibusters in order to make new policies. Reconciliation has reentered the national conversation with the recent tax, climate, and healthcare bill passing in the Senate. So, how does budget reconciliation work?

• Reconciliation bills must exclusively include measures that affect the budget. In practice, reconciliation bills require fewer votes to pass than standard bills because Senate rules stipulate that Senators cannot debate the bills for more than 20 hours.

• For the reconciliation in fiscal year 2022 (FY22), Congress allowed various House and Senate committees to increase the budget deficit by no more than $1.98 trillion total between FY22 and FY31. Federal fiscal years run from October to the end of the following September. 
   
• Congress has passed 26 reconciliation bills since establishing the procedure in 1974. Presidents ultimately signed 22 of these bills into law. 

 Learn more about this legislative and budgeting tool at USAFacts.


The data behind current events

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently declared the spread of the monkeypox virus a public health emergency. By the end of July, the country had 5,189 confirmed cases. Washington, DC had the most cases per capita: 30 per 100,000 residents. HHS recently shipped more than 310,000 doses of one monkeypox vaccine, JYNNEAOS, nationwide.

Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin have primaries tomorrow. As the fall midterms grow nearer, read this analysis of who turned out to vote in the 2018 midterms and how that changed from 2014. For example, people with a bachelor’s degree, some college, or an associate degree had the biggest turnout rate increase, growing by 12 percentage points.

Finally, the weekly fact quiz is updated with new data! Here’s a tip: some of the answers are in this newsletter. Take the quiz.


One last fact