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1. jerenil says:

   April 15, 2013 at 12:17 am

   Government distributes resources based upon statistics and demographics. Government allocates resources based upon many different factors. Government uses data which has been collected through census and statistics, given a population of a community. Some of the things which are affected by information obtained by statistics are the services the government may offer. For example, when a roadway will be repaved or a new hospital will open. However, some of this data may be useful when determining some of these factors. If you solely look at the unemployment numbers they may seem overwhelming and give a poor idea of how a community is doing. When the government looks at the numbers, they have to be adjusted to include or exclude many factors. As in the Brooks article, sometimes you have to make a decision to completely follow the data or to ignore the data on a whole or a part of it.
   When accessing unemployment the government ignores the people who are systemic unemployed meaning they have been unemployed for many years. Another factor which is excluded are transitional employees, meaning the people who have been unemployed due to part time, temporary work or communities were jobs are related to weather climate or times of the year. There are many factors to tackle when deciding to follow the data or to think intuitively. Based upon data retrieved from the Department of Labor, they exclude factors of data while assessing the average national employment rate, such as cyclical unemployment and transitional unemployment. The goal of The Department of Labor while assessing unemployment is to gather accurate and present unemployment rate.
   According to an article that was posted in the New York Times. “The effective use of intuition has even been seen as critical in differentiating successful top executives and board members from lower-level managers and dysfunctional boards (Agor, 1986;Barnard, 1938; Harper, 1989)” (Dane & Pratt, 2007). This article suggests that in order to run a successful business, or be successful period, you should always rely on data as well as intuitions. The article also implies to go with your “gut” instincts when decision making.
   The Census Bureau uses statistics for every piece of information they gather. They also use statistics to allocate potential natural disasters and recovery efforts. “The U.S. Census Bureau produces timely local statistics that are critical to emergency planning, preparedness and recovery efforts. This edition of Facts for Features highlights the number of people living in areas that could be most affected by these dramatic acts of nature” (www.census.gov) According to Brooks, there is a right and a wrong time to use data or ignore the data. In the instance of a natural disaster, gathering data such as population count, emergency shelter locations and gathering information pertaining to past disasters are critical.

   Works Cited
   1. http://www.census.gov
   2. http://www.departmentoflabor.com

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