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Tuesday, June 08, 2010
By Will Corbin, Project Associate.
I recently read a very interesting article (see footnote 1) regarding the association between numeracy (the ability to reason with numbers and mathematical concepts) and people who fell behind on their mortgage payments during the recent housing meltdown in the United States. According to a working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (see footnote 2) , even when accounting for differences in income levels, credit scores, and attitudes towards...
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
By Matthew Tester, Project Associate. It should come as no surprise that our nation’s cities are in trouble; the Great Recession has cut a wide swath. My colleague Will Corbin blogged in March about the Recession’s constrictive effects on municipal finances, which are confirmed in a report by the National League of Cities from December 2009. In 2009, municipal budget shortfalls averaged about three percent, which, alongside increased demands for municipal services, severely inhibits city...
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
By Stephanie Allen, Project Assistant.
The first-time homebuyer tax credit is set to expire this summer; houses must be under contract by the end of the month and sales must be finalized by June 30th to qualify for the credit. By all accounts the credit has been successful in its goal to spur sales and stabilize the plummeting values of American homes. The original tax credit was sent to expire in November of 2009 and was renewed last fall (with some added tax credits for homeowners who...
Thursday, March 04, 2010
By: Matthew Tester, Project Associate.
Top economists from Moody’s Economy.com recently stopped in Atlanta to discuss the Economic Recession of 2007-2009 in all its glory. Speakers Steven Cochrane and Gus Faucher covered a lot of ground in the four-hour session, from the Recession’s magnitude, to policymakers’ mitigation efforts, to forecast conditions. Faucher, director of macroeconomics for Moody’s Economy.com, covered the national indicators and outlook while Cochrane, managing...
Friday, February 19, 2010
By Will Corbin, Project Associate.
“The Dismal Decade,” “The Lost Decade,” “The Decade from Hell,” “The Worst Decade Ever.” American writers and scholars have used all of these phrases to describe the first ten years of this new millennium. Just two months ago, Americans stepped gingerly into a new decade, with fragile hopes that a more prosperous and successful future lay ahead.
The 2000s were flanked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the beginning, and the largest...
Thursday, February 04, 2010
By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
This recession has had a devastating effect on small businesses across the country. In fact, 41% of all the jobs lost in this recession have come from firms with fewer than 50 employers. That is FIVE TIMES the small business job losses than the 2001 recession.
Two important things have happened recently that make this the right time to focus programs on starting and assisting small firms.
First, two weeks...
Friday, January 08, 2010
By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
This week in Atlanta the American Economic Association held its annual meeting. There were PhDs everywhere, nearly 1000 of them. Finally on the last day of the meeting they asked the only relevant question covered at the meeting. To paraphrase, the question is, “How did they blow it so badly?” Virtually none of these theorists came close to predicting what we have been through in the past two years.
What is interesting is to consider is...
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representative passed its $154 billion jobs bill, called the Jobs for Main Street Act of 2010 . Among other things, the expansive legislation hopes to increase infrastructure projects that would provide construction jobs, as well as enable communities to retain and hire teachers, firefighters, and other public servants. The Senate will not look at the bill until the new year so elements of the bill may...
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
By Matt Tarleton, Project Associate.
One in six. That’s how many people are either unemployed or underemployed in this country. As you walk down the street or through the grocery store, on average every sixth person you pass is either unemployed, too discouraged to keep looking for work, or is involuntarily working part-time.
Another month, another couple hundred-thousand jobs lost, another increase in the unemployment rate, and yet another month where we hear that worst is...
Friday, September 25, 2009
By Matthew Tarleton, Project Associate.
I recently had the pleasure of hearing Mark Zandi (Chief Economist) and Stephen Cochrane (Managing Director) of Moody’s Economy.com share their perspective on the national and regional economic outlook. Both contributed many valuable insights during the four hour session; I’ll share some of the highlights with you here.
Moody’s has estimated with confidence that the recession officially ended in either August or possibly September....
Friday, September 18, 2009
By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
As many have written, we have never seen a recession quite like this one. This past week a couple of headlines add more power to that reality. On Thursday, September 10, a Wall Street Journal headline read “Income Gap Shrinks in Slump At the Expense of the Wealthy.” The very next day a headline in The New York Times read “Last Year’s Poverty Rate Was Highest in 12 Years.” So what gives? Interestingly, we can’t simply say that these headlines...
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
This recession has been devastating in terms of job losses. 2008 was the worst year since 1945 and 2009 may eclipse that. Only one sector had a net gain of jobs in 2008 and that was healthcare. All the other sectors lost jobs by the thousands and even millions. An amazing 7 million jobs have disappeared since this recession started in late 2007 and nearly 26 million are unemployed or underemployed (many now working part-time). Weekly hours are near...
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
The economic reports from across the nation remain confusing and contradictory. James C. Cooper at Business Week suggests that plunging inventories could lead to gains in orders and production with lifting payrolls to follow. Many economists are projecting a 2% GDP growth for the last half of 2009.
A report from the Congressional Budget Office last week paints a completely different picture. Their view is that unemployment will average...
Friday, July 31, 2009
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate
A week ago, the federal minimum wage rose to $7.25 an hour. A recent NPR story discussed the projected positive and negative effects the boost in pay would bring, with proponents of the law saying the increase would stimulate spending and pull families out of poverty with wages closer to the national standard of living; the opposition fears the rise in wage spending could hurt small businesses and in turn their employees could lose more jobs.
...
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
By Chelsea Arkin, Project Assistant.
It is easy to see the rippling effects of our country’s economic turndown on the art community. Art sales are dropping rapidly, with many galleries closing altogether. Many recent studies have linked art to economic prosperity, saying that communities that invest in the arts reap the benefit of jobs, economic growth, and a quality of life that will position them to compete effectively in the New Economy. In addition, if we subscribe to the...
Friday, July 17, 2009
By Ellen Anderson, Research Manager.
The College Board, a not-for-profit membership organization composed of more than 5,400 colleges, universities, and other educational entities, reports that the tuition prices at many universities continue to outpace inflation (see chart below; 5.6% inflation in 2008). As costs for high education have soared, so have average debt loads per student – up 18 percent since 2000 (calculation uses 2008 constant dollars). The average debt load among...
Thursday, July 16, 2009
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.
On Monday, the White House published the report “Preparing the Workers of Today for the Jobs of Tomorrow” ( PDF ) by President’s Council of Economic Advisors. There aren’t a lot of surprises here for people who have been following the changes in American jobs – manufacturing will continue to decline; health care will keep growing; jobs that require more education are growing faster than those that don’t; etc.
But while communities are...
Monday, June 22, 2009
By Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
Normally, when the nation comes out of a recession, the consumer plays a key role. As the percentage of the economy becomes increasingly consumer based (now 66%), that becomes even more important. However, this time it looks like things are going to be different. After a spending spree lasting years and years when household’s debt to income ratio soared to 139% in the 4th quarter of 2007, habits are changing. People are trying to unload debt and cut back...
Friday, June 19, 2009
By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate.
During this economic recession, many localities, regions, and states are strapped for funds and must now more than ever prioritize where investments are made. However, the recession can be strategically used as a time to make leaps and bounds in economic development. Two very interesting areas ripe for the investment are bolstering entrepreneurship support programs and encouraging creative arts.
The Kauffman Foundation recently found that...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
By Matthew Tarleton, Project Associate.
In recent weeks, we’ve begun to see a few signs that various forecasts of a recovery beginning in the third quarter may be correct. In this context, a recovery is defined as positive economic output. But on the employment side, we aren’t seeing many positive signs. Continued unemployment claims continue to rise and many economists are forecasting ten percent unemployment by August or September.
"The Impending Jobless Recovery" white...
Monday, April 27, 2009
By Ellen Anderson, Research Manager.
Last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released “ A Chart Book of International Labor Comparisons ” illustrating labor market dynamics in the United States compared to select European and Asian economies. The statistics show trends between 1997 and 2007, with Ireland leading among many key indicators. Of the economies examined, in 2007:
Ireland was the only European economy with an employer-employee tax burden that was lower...
Thursday, April 23, 2009
By Matthew Tarleton, Project Associate.
It’s the sound of corporate profits going down the drain. Way down. I know, that’s not exactly shocking news.
Like much of the economy in the first half of this decade, corporate profits saw tremendous growth and in many ways were particularly inflated. Between 2002 and 2006, corporate profits grew annually by double-digits for the four-year period, an unprecedented period of growth since reliable data has been collected on corporate profits...
Monday, April 06, 2009
By Matthew Tarleton, Project Associate.
One piece of information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that doesn’t receive much attention is the number of individuals working part-time for economic reasons (or “involuntary part-time workers”). Not surprisingly, the data point to yet another troubling characteristic of current labor markets.
Involuntary part-time employment rose by 399,000 in March. As a share of the total labor force, involuntary part-time employment represents...
Thursday, April 02, 2009
By Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
Five years ago Gary Stern, President of The Minneapolis Federal Reserve, co-authored a book titled “Too Big to Fail: the Hazards of Bank Bailouts.” The book reported on the concerns related to the size and inadequate regulation of the largest banks. The recommendations and warnings were summarily ignored or dismissed. Yesterday, Mr. Stern spoke at The Brookings Institution and said this “They situated themselves in the floodplain, ignored the flood...
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Over the course of the last week, we’ve seen some of the first positive economic indicators that point to the beginning signs of recovery in certain areas. And by “positive” I mean “not as bad as last month.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Index rose by 19% and the NASDAQ by 23% over the two week period between March 9th and March 23rd. Both indices remain well below their peak levels observed in May 2008, but a small portion of the losses have been recovered in recent weeks and markets...
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Unemployment continues to climb nationwide, but some parts of our country are feeling the intensity and extent of this recession much more than others. The nation’s Plains States have historically held lower unemployment rates than the national average. The region’s metorpolitan areas have been more resilient to national fluctuations in the business cycle and have often experienced more rapid recoveries coming out of recessions. The map clearly shows that these areas have held up relatively...
Friday, March 13, 2009
After the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) on February 17, 2009 communities, cities, counties, states and regional planning entities began the process of determining how to use the funds to plug deficit gaps and spur projects that have long been overdue. The goals of putting people back to work (or in many cases keeping them in work) and sowing the seeds of our economic future were highlighted in sound bites on nightly news, the news channels, financial news...
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
On February 1st, Tom Friedman wrote a column in The New York Times titled, “Elvis Has Left the Mountain.” (It can be viewed online or as a PDF by clicking here ). Since I was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee and had the chance to see “The King” on several occasions, I had to read on.
Whenever I had the privilege of seeing Elvis Presley perform, after he left the stage an announcer would say, “Elvis has left the building.” The purpose was always to calm the crowd and tell the...
Thursday, March 05, 2009
In early February, continued unemployment claims topped five million for the first time since the Department of Labor started collecting data on unemployment claims in 1967. However, as a share of the labor force, continued unemployment claims are still lower than the levels experienced during the recession of the early 1970s and 1980s. That may not be the case for long. We’re thirteen months into this recession and still counting. As new unemployment claims (initial claims) continue to outpace...
Sunday, March 01, 2009
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately seven-out-of-ten people in the United States live urban areas. Therefore, during this recession, cities have a huge stake in finding solutions to spur economic recuperation. The Conference of Mayors has developed the Main Street Economic Recovery Report , which recommends federal investment (using ten various funding streams) in city projects that would quickly create jobs, address infrastructure issues, and help small businesses. This...
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
In recent weeks, there has been a plethora of political pundits on cable and network news analyzing the proposed economic stimulus legislation. Two partisan media watchdog groups analyzed the television coverage to determine how the stimulus legislation was being debated in the national media. During the three weeks ending Sunday, February 22nd, the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America found that of the 681 guests on cable and network news that discussed the economic stimulus package,...