Understanding Texas: Population Growth

Based on current trends, Texas is expected to gain anywhere between 3-5 million people by 2036. By 2060, Texas will be home to anywhere between 36 and 44 million people. (Last updated Sept. 2023)

Understanding Texas Women: Inside Their Life Stage Experiences

Texas women are not monolithic and reflect the diversity of our state. We built this dashboard to show girls and women throughout critical phases of their life span to understand their hardships and achievements. (Last updated April 2023)

Aim Hire Texas Regional Workforce Data

Current and future education and workforce needs are displayed across Texas Workforce Development Areas. Employing education-to-workforce pipeline data, it’s a unique analysis not previously available. (Last updated Fall 2021)

Texas Advanced Coursetaking Dashboard

Texas Education Agency data are visualized to reveal disparities in advanced course offerings for select student groups across school, senate and house districts as well as Educational Service Center regions. (Last updated August 2023)

Who are the Uninsured in Texas?

In partnership with the Cicero Group, this study is perhaps the most in-depth, state-level look at people without health insurance designed to help identify barriers and personal decisions that impact access to affordable care. Texas has the nation’s highest uninsured rate — about five million people, or 18% of residents in 2021, compared to the national average of 8.6%. Most uninsured Texans qualify for a government health program or for federal subsidies that would help pay for coverage but have not signed up. (Last updated October 24, 2022)

Health Price Transparency Dashboard

This tool evaluates compliance across the state, including filters by region and senate district, of all 644 Texas hospitals subject to state and federal price transparency rules. Explore visualizations of actual prices for certain health care services and procedures by hospital, payer and region with periodic expansion of datasets. (Last updated Fall 2022)

Health Coverage Policy Explorer

This tool allows all Texans – both policymakers and the public – to explore policy alternatives and combine policies to maximize both the number of covered Texans and federal funding streams, including options to expand Medicaid statewide or for certain populations, such as post-partem mothers, and make important changes to address access and affordability of coverage on the Affordable Care Act Exchange, such adopt fixed-rate review or create a state-based exchange. (Last updated Spring 2021)

Investing in Texas: Broadband

The Center for Public Finance at Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy examines the benefits – and challenges – that come with expanding broadband to connect the millions of Texans currently unable to access this critical resource. (May 2022)

Changing World Oil Markets and the Texas Economy

A partnership with the Center for Houston’s Future, this examines how losses in the oil and gas industry would affect the Texas economy, specifically K-12 education funding. Included are oil price scenarios, forecasts of oil and gas production over the next 15 years, and estimates on the Texas budget, economy, and school funding. (March 2021)

Investing in Texas: Energy Expansion

Using carbon capture, geothermal energy and hydrogen as examples, this details how Texas can continue its energy leadership in the 21st century, as growing demand for clean, zero-carbon energy fuels a worldwide energy expansion. (April 2022)

Investing in Texas: Drought

Texas’ potential negative economic impacts are presented, based on the State Water Plan’s projection of insufficient additional water supplies to meet increasing demand over the next 50 years. (June 2022)

Investing in Texas: State Parks

Research indicates that every $1 in public money spent on parks can generate between $4 and $12 in economic return. State park investment can generate meaningful and measurable economic benefits at the state level as well as for local and rural economies. (July 2022)

Texas Law Enforcement Data Landscape

Benchmark Analytics partnered on this report on the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) and their effectiveness at regulating law enforcement. Current processes of hiring and firing peace officers are also examined including analyses to estimate if officers with misconduct move between law enforcement agencies. (November 2022)

Modernizing Texas’ Child Welfare IT System 

Jointly published by Texas 2036 and the Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services, the report dives in on the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services’ outdated IMPACT data system that further impedes caseworkers’ ability to review important electronic case file information. (January 2023)

Extreme Weather

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the weather forecasts. Innovative research led by Texas State’s Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon predicts our extreme weather events and natural disasters up to the year 2036. (October 2021)

Investing in Texas: Cybersecurity and IT Modernization

Given recent sizable state and federal appropriations for technology upgrades, the report delves into both challenges and opportunities for the state government. Included are optimal cybersecurity financing, identifying unique risks, allocating limited resources despite competing priorities and coordinating efforts with stakeholders. (June 2022)