Harris 1

Lily Harris

Mr.Trenfeild

8th period

10-23-15

Regression Project

For my regression project I researched unemployment rate vs. population for certain

cities. I wanted to know if certain cities with a grater population had a higher or lower

unemployment rate. I think cities and their population have to do with unemployment rate

because the if a city is growing rapidly it might mean that their job market is growing too. Maybe

cities closer to the US boarder might have a higher population and a high unemployment rate

because of an increase in immigrants, some crossing the border illegally. Most immigrants

don't have a high level of education. Those people are coming to find a better life and need a

job, but many jobs for uneducated or unskilled workers fill up quickly. Higher paying jobs

require need a higher educated work force. My project is directed toward people that are

considering moving to a different city because they want to be closer to family or don't like

where they are currently living. Another group of people would be ones interested in selling their

homes and know that cities with low unemployment and a growing population will have an

advantage; because buyers move to cities with a good job market. Right now, Austin has a

better employment rate than other cities. This topic is directed to a wide range of people; there

are many more examples than the ones I just suggested.

I expected that a city with a higher population had a higher unemployment rate. I noticed

in my data that a higher population doesn't really effect the unemployment rate. I had a

population with 214237 people and a unemployment rate of 3.8. Then I looked at the population

under the one I just gave you and the population was lower but they had a higher
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unemployment rate, so I guess my project didn’t correlate. My regression equation was

y=3.106E-13x2 - 4.539E-7x=3.2458 and I used a quadratic function because it had the highest

r2 value which was 0.178. I thought that my idea for a regression project would be a good idea,

but from my data and what my graph looks like I don't think they correlated with each other at

all. I definitely think that there is something that affects unemployment rate and I would like to

know what the biggest factor is. The unemployment rate may not be tied to population as much

as it is to the economy of the particular city. Maybe my regression project would have worked

with using unemployment and unemployment statistics rather than with population.

I was not very accurate because my ideas didn't have any correlation. I have learned a

lot from this project and it was fun because I got to pick something that I wanted to learn about. I

think maybe my two points didn't correlate because population might be too broad. I think if I did

a little more research about unemployment rate I would of been able to find a better group of

variables that still have to do with unemployment rate. My paper is not a causal issue it is an

important issue because we all need to know about unemployment so we look for jobs in cities

with low unemployment rates.

Unemployment Rate Vs. Population

4
Unemployment Rate

3
y = 3.106E-13x2 - 4.539E-7x + 3.2458

R² = 0.178
2

0
0 750000 1500000 2250000 3000000

Population
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Work Cited
“Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas.” U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics, n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2015