Total Environmental Scan

Preliminary data from the National Center for Health Statistics show that the number of births in the United States rose in 2021 to just under 3.66 million, after falling to 3.61 million in 2020. While it might be tempting to call this increase—representing nearly 46,000 births—a rebound, we’ll need to see another year of growth before we can call it a comeback.

2020, marked by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, saw the largest one-year dip in births in more than a quarter-century. And the preliminary 2021 figure, while an improvement from 2020, is still lower than 2019’s 3.75 million births.

U.S. Births Increased in 2021. But Don't Call It a Comeback.

Author(s): Beth Jarosz

Publisher: Population Reference Bureau

The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Toolkit explores the practical opportunities and risks that rapidly emerging technologies represent for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The toolkit outlines how technology can help reduce bias from recruitment processes, diversify talent pools, and benchmark diversity and inclusion across organizations. Research is also cited that suggests well-managed diverse teams significantly outperform homogenous ones over time, across profitability, innovation, decision-making, and employee engagement.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 4.0: A Toolkit for Leaders to Accelerate Social Progress in the Future of Work

Publisher: World Economic Forum

Publication Date: 6/1/2020

Chart and table of U.S. population from 1950 to 2022. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.

• The current population of U.S. in 2022 is 338,289,857, a 0.38% increase from 2021.
• The population of U.S. in 2021 was 336,997,624, a 0.31% increase from 2020.
• The population of U.S. in 2020 was 335,942,003, a 0.49% increase from 2019.
• The population of U.S. in 2019 was 334,319,671, a 0.66% increase from 2018.

U.S. Population Growth Rate 1950-2022

Publisher: Macrotrends

Publication Date: 2022

The approval of several COVID-19 vaccines in late 2020 has brightened public health and economic prospects for 2021. Yet, prior to the onset of the pandemic, the global economy already had a fragile growth outlook, with social tensions over the evident polarization of economic outcomes and high levels of uncertainty. At this critical juncture, policymakers need to look beyond reviving the old economy and instead shift towards a thriving global economy—where growth is revived, social justice more fully realized, and the climate crisis averted.

Chief Economists Outlook 2021

Publisher: World Economic Forum

Publication Date: 1/1/2021

In this Fifth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission seeks to obtain detailed comment to enable it to make further progress toward ensuring that the rates, charges, and practices for and in connection with interstate and international inmate calling services meet applicable statutory standards.

Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services

Publisher: Federal Communications Commission

Volume, Issue, & Page: Vol. 86, No. 142

Publication Date: 7/28/2021

Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services

An essential consideration for government, business and civil society is how technologies are harnessed and regulated to accelerate growth, encourage innovation and build resiliency in the wake of COVID-19. How governments and other stakeholders approach the governance of technologies will play an important role in how we reset society, the economy and the business environment.

This report examines some of the most important applications of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies if we are to thrive in a post-pandemic world and the governance challenges that should be addressed for these technologies to reach their potential.

By the end of November 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was estimated to have resulted in the deaths of between 268,000 and 360,000 Americans.1 The spread of the disease stressed the U.S. health care system, with the number of people needing care over-whelming available resources in some parts of the country. Both the disease and the actions taken to respond to it stressed the country as a whole and had broad impacts on the economic system and government agencies at all levels.

The U.S. Criminal Justice System in the Pandemic Era and Beyond

Author(s): Brian A. Jackson

Publisher: RAND Corporation

Publication Date: 2021

Calculating the answer to the question “How many people have ever lived on Earth?” is complicated. To begin with, when we initially wrote this article back in 1995, “modern” Homo sapiens (that is, people who were roughly like we are now) were thought to have first walked the Earth around 50,000 B.C.E. Discoveries now suggest modern Homo sapiens existed much earlier, around 200,000 B.C.E. This major change in our understanding of human existence spurred new calculations and consultations with experts, resulting in an estimate that about 117 billion members of our species have ever been born on Earth.

How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?

Author(s): Toshiko Kaneda and Carl Haub

Publisher: Population Reference Bureau (PRB)

The Sentencing Project's key fact sheet provides a compilation of major developments in the criminal justice system over the past several decades.

Trends in U.S. Corrections

Publisher: The Sentencing Project

Publication Date: 5/1/2021

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/trends-in-u-s-corrections/

This report presents data on diversity in public service organizations — in state and local government, education, health care, and related nonprofit organizations. It also compares historical and current public service diversity figures to those of the broader workforce. Aspects of diversity discussed include race, ethnicity, age, gender, and other categories (to the extent that data is available), such as LGBTQIA+ identification, veteran status, cognitive diversity, religion, and language.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the public service workforce

Author(s): MissionSquare Research Institute

Publication Date: 9/1/2021

Global prospects remain highly uncertain one year into the pandemic. New virus mutations and the accumulating human toll raise concerns, even as growing vaccine coverage lifts sentiment. Economic recoveries are diverging across countries and sectors, reflecting variation in pandemic-induced disruptions and the extent of policy support. The outlook depends not just on the outcome of the battle between the virus and vaccines—it also hinges on how effectively economic policies deployed under high uncertainty can limit lasting damage from this unprecedented crisis.Global growth is projected at 6 percent in 2021, moderating to 4.4 percent in 2022. The projections for 2021 and 2022 are stronger than in the October 2020 WEO.