The U.S. Census Bureau 2009 Community Surveys data was released yesterday (Tuesday). It makes depressing reading. Is there any good news here at all?
Yes, but not a lot…First the bad news:
Of the 50%+ of all Americans affected by this deepest of recessions, which groups have been impacted worst?
Younger People
Perhaps the greatest tragedy in this is that the school and college graduates who should be getting to know the world of work, and discovering how their role in society, have had their aspiration cut off at the knees. Teen unemployment is running at 27.6%, which the Labor Department reports as the highest since records began (1948). This is not the best way to ensure a healthy and wealthy future.
Minority ethnic groups
The African American community is taking the lion’s share of hardship, with poverty levels way above average. Taking the nation’s capital as the example, black child poverty runs at 43%, versus 13% for Hispanic children and only 3% for whites.
This is compounded when the people involved are also less-well educated.
What effect has the recession had?
The obvious one is job losses, or reduced working hours, leading to reduced household incomes.
After cutting back on “discretionary” spending, large numbers of families have found their overhead commitments – mortgages, rents, car loans, etc – no longer fit within the available budget. So consumer spending (70% of overall spending in the economy) has had the largest drop since 1942.
The housing market, with median prices down 26%, has been grid-locked with many home owners trapped in homes where they can no longer afford to pay the mortgage, but have realistic hope of selling the home in the short term.
This has lead to record levels of delinquent mortgages and rent payments, damaged personal credit ratings, and worsening ability to qualify for low cost loans which could have helped weather the economic storms.
A less obvious impact reported in the census data is that the marriage rate has slowed. The data show that there are now more singles than marrieds in the 25-34 age range. Presumably this is as much due to lower financial confidence in the future as changing views of marriage.
And the Good News?
Well, I said there wasn’t much…but let’s end on a more positive note:
- North Dakota’s median household income rose, for the 8th consecutive year, 5.1% to $47,827.
- Median Household income – holding its own or rising in 16 states.
- Maryland, for the 4th consecutive year, holds the record for highest average income ($69,272)
