Indianapolis, Two City Estimates

The Indiana Department of Workforce Development has actually been producing two estimates for Indianapolis for some years:  one for the consolidated city (think Unigov) and one for the “remainder” or “balance”, without the additional city entities what were aggregated with the former City of Indianapolis in creating the consolidated city back in 1970.  Clermont, Crow’s Nest, Cumberland, Homecroft, Meridian Hills, North Crow’s Nest, Rocky Ripple, Spring Hill, Warren Park, Williams Creek and Wynnedale each have their own boundaries (defined by longitude and latitude) for geo-coding/mapping purposes, apart from the “core city” of Indianapolis, and their own population estimates from each Census.  The labor force estimates that the department has been publishing heretofore were actually for the “core” city of Indianapolis and do not include employment or unemployment for those additional cities.  Estimates for both the core and the consolidated city have been generated and supplied to the Bureau of Labor Statistics on a monthly basis, and were and are available from their website (http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=la).  Effective with our June estimates, however, the Department of Workforce Development will begin publishing both the core and the consolidated city estimates on a regular basis.  The core city figures will be labeled as “Indianapolis (core)” and these estimates will be consistent in scope with previously published estimates for Indianapolis.  The broader definition/consolidated city will be labeled “Indianapolis (cons)”.  The population difference between the two city definitions is not large; it works out to about 10,000 people added to the 2000 census population of the core city of about 782,000.  The differences between the employment and unemployment estimates for the two definitions will, therefore, be fairly small in relation to the city’s total labor force.  When ranking cities based on unemployment rate, we will continue to use the “core” city, as in the past, and exclude the consolidated city.  The additional data series is basically being provided as a convenience for our users who may wish to use the more comprehensive definition of the city.  Please contact the Research and Analysis group of the Department of Workforce Development with any questions.