Explore the Data

Economy & Workforce > Overview

Explore the Economy & Workforce Data Below:

Economy & Workforce

Overview

Lincoln continues to have an active and educated workforce: high rates of workforce participation, low unemployment, and with over half of adults with post-secondary degrees. However, Lincoln’s per capita income is lower than the U.S. metropolitan average, even after adjusting for Lincoln’s low cost of living. Lincoln also continues to have a high percentage of children with all parents in the workforce, which signals the need for high quality and affordable childcare. However, childcare costs have increased substantially since 2019 and may consume a significant proportion of household income.

Explore the Data

Footnotes

  1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021, October 21). Concepts and definitions.
  2. Families with all parents in the workforce include two-parent families with both parents working and one-parent families with said parent working.
  3. Taryn W. Morrissey (2017). Child care and parent labor force participation: a review of the research literature, Review of Economics of the Household, 15(1), 1-24.
  4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023). Occupational employment and wage statistics query system (Lincoln, NE; SOC: 299011). [Data set].
  5. The sum of the income of all people 15 years and older living in the household. A household includes related family members and all the unrelated people, if any, such as lodgers, foster children, wards, or employees who share the housing unit. A person living alone in a housing unit, or a group of unrelated people sharing a housing unit, is also counted as a household.
  6. Federal poverty thresholds are determined annually based on household income, family size, and the number of related children under 18 years of age. In 2023, the poverty threshold for a family of four with two children under the age of 18 was $30,900 in annual household income.
  7. Not in labor force includes all people 16 years old and over who are not classified as members of the labor force. This category consists mainly of students, stay at home parents, retired workers, seasonal workers not currently looking for work, institutionalized people, and people only doing incidental unpaid family work.
  8. The civilian workforce includes people 16 years old and over who are working or are actively looking for work, but excludes people on active duty in the United States Armed Forces.
  9. Federal poverty thresholds are determined annually based on household income, family size, and the number of related children under 18 years of age. In 2023, the poverty threshold for a family of four with two children under the age of 18 was $30,900 in annual household income.
  10. Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century. (2007). Rising above the gathering storm: Energizing and employing America for a brighter economic future. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
  11. Rothwell, J. (2013). The hidden STEM economy. Metropolitan Policy Program. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.
  12. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021). COVID-19 ends longest employment recovery and expansion in CES history, causing unprecedented job losses in 2020.