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Americans speak a lot of languages. Using individual-level census data, we found the most commonly spoken language at home other than English and Spanish in each state and Washington, D.C. German, French, and Vietnamese are common in several states. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Americans speak a ton of languages, and this map shows which languages other than English and Spanish are the most common in each state and Washington, D.C. The US Census Bureau's American Community Survey annually asks more than 1 million Americans questions about their lives, families, and backgrounds. One question asks respondents what...

From ancient Greece to Renaissance Italy to the Four Asian Tigers, city-states have always punched above their weight. They’ve driven culture forward, facilitated global commerce, and charged ahead of their nation-bound peers.Indeed, cities  - and the metropolitan regions that orbit around them  -  make sense as a political and economic unit. The key services we depend on government to do, from building infrastructure to ensuring public safety, are mostly handled by cities. And contrary to earlier predictions, the forces of globalization and the rise of the information economy have only made cities more important as economic engines and innovation hubs. It’s no surprise,...

The United States has been consistently gobbling up new territory for the last 241 years. Ever since the founders declared the 13 colonies independent from Britain, the US has acquired its 50 states through clever land deals and plunder. The current US map does not even include the 16 territories and hundreds of military bases spread throughout the world. With its extreme propensity for growth, the US has undoubtedly amassed the largest empire known to man. However, the US empire has hit its peak and is now unraveling quickly. For more detail on why this is the case, you can...

Old Mexico Lives On Feb 1st 2014 On February 2nd 1848, following a short and one-sided war, Mexico agreed to cede more than half its territory to the United States. An area covering most of present-day Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, plus parts of several other states, was handed over to gringolandia. The rebellious state of Tejas, which had declared its independence from Mexico in 1836, was recognised as American soil too. But a century and a half later, communities have proved more durable than borders. (snip)

New research from Sarah Arnett examines states’ abilities to meet their financial obligations in the face of state budget challenges that have far outlasted the Great Recession. Fiscal simulations by the Government Accountability Office suggest that despite recent gains in tax revenues and pension assets, the long-term outlook for states’ fiscal condition is negative (GAO 2013). These simulations predict that states will have yearly difficulties balancing revenues and expenditures due, in part, to rising health care costs and the cost of funding state and local pensions. Arnett uses four different indices to analyze state solvency using each state’s fiscal year...

More bad news for Gov. Chris Christie: New Jersey is dead last in the nation in terms of its fiscal solvency, according to a new report. The study, released this week by the free-market Mercatus Center at George Mason University, ranked each state's financial health based on a variety of measures, such as cash on hand to pay its current bills, budget surpluses or deficits, unfunded liabilities and ability to provide adequate public services. The Mercatus study used 2012 data. New Jersey came in last on two of those measures — budget and long-term solvency — and finished in the...