The unemployment rate in Texas dropped significantly at the end of 2011. Check out the annual industry changes in Texas' major metropolitan areas and the unemployment rate in each county with this updated interactive map.

With a push being made to better align the state's higher-education output with its workforce needs, we’ve put together interactive graphs and a database of what those needs will actually be in the year 2018.

Aaronson on Rick Perry's Texas Enterprise Fund, Aguliar on the DOJ's Joe Arpaio problem, Galbraith on the uncertainty about Texas' electric grid, Grissom and Schwartz of The New York Times on the latest in the Michael Morton case, Hamilton on the first leg of Perry's Iowa bus tour, Murphy and McLain unveil our new campaign finance database, Ramsey et al. go live with the first round of our 2012 election brackets, Root on a GOP rival's queries about Perry's pension play, M. Smith contrasts the various school finance lawsuits and Tan, Dehn and Murphy on a shortage of mental health professionals: The best of our best content from December 19-23, 2011.

The Lone Star State is getting bigger. Texas had the largest population growth of any state between April 2010 and July 2011, according to figures released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

This interactive shows the demographics of poverty in each Texas county using the most up-to-date data from the American Community Survey. Browse the maps to compare poverty rates by age, sex, race and ethnicity, educational attainment and employment. 

The Sunlight Foundation released an update to the interactive Capitol Words on Monday. The application allows users to search and compare words spoken by federal legislators using data from the Congressional Record.

In 2010, 4.4 million Texans lived below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday. Poverty has increased in more than 200 counties across Texas since 2007, the year before the recession hit. Use our interactive maps to explore the change in annual poverty rates and the median household income in your county.

This update of our "Texas Economy by Region" interactive map compares the unemployment rate from 2010 to 2011 in each county to determine whether the economy has improved or declined. We’ve also included a map of Texas cities with pop-ups that show industry changes from 2010 to 2011. 

This interactive shows the dramatic drop in employment at Texas state agencies from the third quarter of fiscal year 2011 to the last quarter, right before $15 billion in cuts to the 2012-2013 biennium budget kicked in Sept. 1.

TxDOT's plan to hire five new executives — each paid up to at least $250,000 annually — has received heavy criticism. How do the salaries compare to those at other public entities? We checked our government salary database to find out.

At this morning's TribLive conversation, Comptroller Susan Combs talked about the data breach on her agency's web site that inadvertently exposed the personal information of 3.5 million state employees and retirees.

This interactive table shows how much stimulus funding was awarded to state agencies, how it was received and spent, and the number of jobs created or retained with the money, according to quarterly reports filed by recipients of stimulus funds.

The FBI has released the 2010 edition of Crime in the United States. Use our interactive to compare Texas to other states and our sortable tables to compare crime statistics in cities across Texas.

The Tribune loves infographics, including the recent one posted by the Perry campaign called “State of Texas Economy.” But like all claims made by a political campaign, it deserves the scrutiny of a fact-checking exercise.

Mitt Romney says Rick Perry has "substantially underperformed his predecessors on job creation” and that the state's unemployment rate has doubled on his watch. Is Romney right?

As wildfires continue to sweep across the state, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has authorized seven more grants to help Texas manage the flames. Although the figures for the grants given to Texas after June are not yet available, the Tribune has a look at the $3.8 billion FEMA has given Texas to mitigate disasters.

This morning @TribData released a visualization of all executions in the state of Texas since Gov. Rick Perry took office in late 2000. Here's how we made it happen.

An interactive map comparing how much TWIA paid claimants for three major hurricanes that hit the Texas coast and the number of lawsuits claimants filed in return. Also find the ten law firms with the biggest settlements from TWIA and compare the number of lawsuits and legal defense spending for each storm.