Pittsburghers are covered when it comes to having health insurance. About 96 percent of adults in the Pittsburgh region reported having some type of health insurance in 2016, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The rate of health care coverage in the seven-county Pittsburgh... More
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Health Coverage Widespread
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Air Regulations: A Primer
Air quality in the United Sates is governed by a complex regulatory structure that sets pollution limits and authorizes federal, state and local agencies to enforce them. The regulations which agencies enforce vary with the source of pollution, what they emit and the air quality in the region where they are located. Federal President Richard... More
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Air Rules
Regulating air quality faces new challenges Bluer skies over southwestern Pennsylvania owe a debt to local, state and federal regulations that have evolved over decades to spur technological advancements and investment in controlling air pollutants from industrial plants to the cars we drive. It wasn’t until the City of Pittsburgh adopted its Smoke Control Ordinance... More
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Easy On the Wallet
Region’s cost of living remains low Southwestern Pennsylvania remains more affordable overall than the average U.S. region despite an uptick in the cost of living last year, according to national cost of living data. In 2017, the average composite cost of living index for the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area was 99.6, according to the recently... More
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Air Quality Update
Recent concentrations of fine particulate and ground level ozone air pollution follow a familiar trend. Both are improving, the most recent federal single-year data suggest. But only ozone meets health-based air quality standards when longer-term levels are considered. The 8-hour annual average for ozone in southwestern Pennsylvania fell to .073 parts per million in 2016,... More
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Unemployment Drops, Again
Unemployment fell again in December as the Pittsburgh region continued the encouraging trend that characterized 2017. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased .8 percent, from 5.7 percent in December 2016 to 4.9 percent in December 2017 across the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Within the... More
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Job Growth Ends Year On High Note
After a flat five years, job growth in the Pittsburgh region ended on an upswing in 2017. The seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area gained 19,300 jobs between December 2016 and December 2017—a 1.6 percent increase over the year, according to the preliminary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The December data cap off... More
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Pittsburgh Wages Show Strong Growth
Wage growth continues to be a bright spot in the southwestern Pennsylvania economy, the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggest. The average weekly wage in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area grew 4.1 percent from the second quarter of 2016 to the second quarter of 2017 – the fourth highest growth rate among... More
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Housing Prices Rise Slowly
Housing appreciation in southwestern Pennsylvania remains low compared to benchmark regions. But that doesn’t mean home sales are slack, real estate services say. “It’s a pretty healthy market in the City of Pittsburgh right now and that spills into suburban markets,” said Tom Ceponis, senior vice president, Howard Hanna Real Estate Services. “Our biggest Achilles... More