Hackathon: Reimagining the Economic and Political Wellbeing of Americans

Session Submission Type: Workshop

Session Description

In the United States today, too many families cannot achieve the life they want, too many communities have not benefited fully from national economic growth, and too many Americans believe the economy does not work for them. A new report from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Advancing a People First Economy, investigates the state of wellbeing in America today. As part of this project the Commission developed a new, county-level dashboard measuring wellbeing. Launched in November 2023, the Core Score (corescore.us) is drawn from 11 indicators across four categories: economic security, economic opportunity, health, and political efficacy, the latter measuring the quality of representation, civic participation, and voter turnout.

Using the CORE Score data and dashboard, the purpose of the hackathon is to build participants’ facility in working with large data sets to find new relationships between political and economic well-being, in writing for public and policy-focused audiences, to work on new data combinations, and to have fun. Hackathon participants can take part as individuals or as teams and focus on one of several categories: best short form analysis, best visualization, best data collaboration. Final submissions will be reviewed by a panel of judges, including Commission Co-Chair Katherine Cramer and Commission member Jacob Hacker. Prizes will be awarded at the end.

Sub Unit

• Division 61: American Political Economy

Chair

• Betsy Super American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Presenters

• Jacob S. Hacker Yale University

• Katherine J Cramer University of Wisconsin, Madison