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From White House executive action and Congressional pushback to child migrant increases and varying deportation figures, it can be hard to keep track of the news tick-tock on the immigration issue in the United States.

Likewise, it can be difficult to keep up with the myriad academic journals and reports, as a large network of social science researchers across the country continues to produce volumes of material on these issues.

Competition from China appears to be hobbling innovation in the United States, say the authors of a new study that juxtaposes import penetration and patent applications.

The issue: A company’s innovation is sometimes measured by the number of its patent applications. Patents, the idea goes, indicate spending on research and development, which is especially key in the manufacturing sector. What does it mean when patent applications fall?

A clear and persistent legacy of the Great Recession is the country’s high national unemployment rate, which has hovered at 9 percent or greater since May 2009. It has been less clear, however, how the economic downturn has impacted the collective wealth of U.S. households.

Once upon a time, the American family of the popular imagination lived in the suburbs, had 2.5 children, and spent its weekends washing the car in the driveway. The United States has become increasingly diverse and significantly more urban over time, however, and such images no longer hold true for much of the country — even to the exclusion of that most American of icons, the family car.

In 2010 and 2011, the rate of poverty in the United States stayed roughly constant at 15% — some 46.2 million people, according to Census Bureau figures issued in September 2012. This represents the greatest total number of people designated as poor since the government began the count more than a half-century ago.