New Pew Research Survey Shows Pandemic's Differing Economical Impact on a Variety of Households12/14/2023 ![]() A multitude of reports have shown that the Covid 19 outbreak in 2020, with its subsequent national lockdown, proved economically challenging to families across the country. But now a new survey published by the Pew Research Center is indicating that the pandemic years were particularly challenging for poorer white families and families of color. According to the survey, poorer white families had increased debt loads of around $4,700 as of the last month of 2021, while poorer black households had an average indebtedness of $4,000. Poorer Hispanic families were able to end up even with the number of debts they owed; while poorer Asian families experienced the greatest debt load of the minority groups studied with an average of $8,900. Racial gaps in wealth, prevalent for decades, remained constant during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, with white households having nine times as much wealth as of the end of 2021 as did black households. Similarly, notes a narrative accompanying the Pew survey, white households had "five times as much wealth as Hispanic households in 2021 and three time as much as multiracial households." But despite their high rate of indebtedness, "Asian households had more wealth than white households" as of the end of 2021. Overall, the initial covid years were not all bad for everyone economically: "The pandemic itself helped households boost their savings initially by driving a reduction in consumption." Various studies have since shown that all U.S. households saved a total of $2.3 trillion more after the pandemic than was the case in the year before Covid 19. "That is upwards of $15,000, for each household." At the same time, all U.S. households, regardless of color or race, "benefited from rising home prices," which increased from 2019 by around 31% heading into 2022. The home price increases lessened throughout 2022, with an overall gain of 5.7%. But those price increases, says the narrative, have to also be put in the context of other countervailing trends: "Mortgage rates doubled from 3.1% at the end of 2021 to 6.4% at the end of 2022, and stock prices tumbled 19.4% over the year." The Pew Research report was based on statistics collected from the U.S. Census Bureau's Surveys of Income and Program Participation which consisted of information gathered from more than 17,000 households. By Garry Boulard
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![]() Work is expected to begin next April on the building of a new fire station on the east side of Pueblo, Colorado. The project will replace the Pueblo Fire Department's current Station 6, which is located at 1325 East 4th Street. The department currently has ten stations located strategically on all sides of the city but has also announced plans to build an eleventh station that will go up at the intersection of Pueblo Boulevard and West 24th Street. That newest station will be designed to provide coverage to the growing west side of the city. As earlier announced, the new stations will not only provide more equipment space but will also have living quarters with bedrooms and kitchens, training facilities, and gym space. Just as important as the new space, construction of the fire stations will see the creation of truck rooms that are separated from the rest of the facilities. To this end, Barb Huber, chief of the fire department, said the stations will feature a better ventilation system to dispose of toxic fumes from the trucks. Work may begin on yet a third new station, this one on the north side of the city, later next summer. This third project will see the replacement of Station Number 8, which is located at 1551 Bonforte Boulevard on the upper north side of the city. Funding for the new facilities work is coming through some $37 million in Certificates of Participation approved earlier this year by the Pueblo City Council. Such certificates are typically used by cities to fund infrastructure and facilities projects, paying back whatever the amount is on a long-range basis. The Pueblo Fire Department was officially created in 1889 when the city's population stood at around 24,000. Today that city is home to some 112,000 residents, with the fire department responding to more than 30,000 calls a year. By Garry Boulard ![]() The popular Gateway Park in Farmington may soon see the construction of a facility designed to protect visitors from the intense New Mexico sun. City officials say plans have long been in the making to build a covered pavilion in the park, which is located in the 3400 block of E. Main Street near the banks of the Animas River. By design, the pavilion will be put up in the area used as a farmers’ market, connecting that area with the seating for a nearby amphitheater. Previous reports indicated that the structure would measure around 60 feet by 80 feet, and will also include a storage area, restrooms, and concessionaire kitchen. In an earlier statement, Warren Unsicker, director of economic development for the City of Farmington, said the pavilion will “enable numerous user groups and markets to operate without being impacted by the weather.” The New Mexico Tourism Department has recently made the project more feasible with a $500,000 grant that is a part of its “Destination Forward” program. That Tourism Department funding comes on the heels of a $1.2 million Regional Recreation Centers/Quality of Life grant announced by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham to build the pavilion and fund several other Gateway Park initiatives. By Garry Boulard ![]() New legislation has been introduced in both the Senate and House of Representatives calling for a tax credit to spur affordable rental housing for working Americans. In presenting what is officially called the Workforce Housing Tax Credit, Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden remarked: “Right now, America’s nurses, firefighters, and teachers are struggling to find affordable housing near the communities they serve.” “More must be done to fill the ‘missing middle’ between low-income housing and million-dollar homes,” Wyden continued. By establishing what he said is a “middle income tax credit,” Wyden said the legislation will “guarantee more housing.” In addition, the bill will “help housing finance agencies best meet the needs of their individual communities.” As designed, the legislation would make it possible for state housing agencies to issue credit allocations to various developers that could then be sold to investors. Using the proceeds, the developers would then have more available funds for building apartments. Put simply, said the bill’s co-sponsor Alaska Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, the legislation will “catalyze the private sector to build more housing in urban and rural areas for working families.” Wyden has long been involved with affordable housing issues. Earlier this year, he remarked “housing ought to be a basic human right.” The legislation, however, has sparked the opposition of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, calling it a “misguided and wasteful use of scarce federal resources.” The group added that “middle-income families comprise less than 1% of those facing significant housing challenges, while 92.5% of severely cost-burdened households have very low or extremely low incomes and would not be served by the new tax breaks.” The National Association of Home Builders, on the other hand, has announced its support of the legislation. In a statement, the group said it is “exactly the type of solution we need Congress to enact in order to begin solving the housing affordability crisis.” By Garry Boulard ![]() A unique housing project that will see the construction of 144 homes on the west side of Fort Collins has received a green light from the city. The Polestar Village will be situated on a 20-acre site to the east of the South Overland Trail and will include landscaped streets and trails, a large community garden, and designated open space. The project, winning the unanimous approval of the Fort Collins Planning and Zoning Commission, is the newest version of a community concept that was originally established in Hawaii. More than that, the project is billed as a place of "spirit, community, and lifelong learning," that will additionally feature a community center with a dining hall and classrooms, small commercial center, pickleball and volleyball courts, and common areas for cooking and dining. According to plans submitted to the city, the village will also see the construction of energy-efficient structures, including townhomes and condos. Polestar Village is also the name used for the nonprofit group behind the development. Formerly based in Pahoa, Hawaii, the entity first proposed a community in Fort Collins more than two years ago. The original template called for 136 homes, with hopes that construction would start by the spring of 2023. Now, if all goes according to plans, the initial work on the Polestar Village is expected to begin sometime next year. By Garry Boulard ![]() The design phase calling for an extensive reconstruction of a busy east central El Paso throughway is expected to begin sometime in 2025, with the actual work slated to start the following year. The Buffalo Soldier Road runs between Montana Avenue and Interstate 10, just to the northwest of downtown El Paso. Its naming made national news in the summer of 2020 when members of the El Paso City Council decided to do away with what had been called Robert E. Lee Road. While Lee Road, honoring the Confederacy's greatest most famous General, endured for decades, it was discarded during a national season of renaming Confederate buildings and streets. Council members then decided to put a positive spin on matters by naming the road after the famous Buffalo Soldiers, a group of several U.S. Army regiments in the years after the Civil War who were black and protected and patrolled vast stretches of the American West. One regiment, watching guard over El Paso, was housed at nearby Fort Bliss. Now up to $8.4 million in funding has been secured to modernize the Buffalo Soldier Road, adding new sidewalks, bicycle facilities, street lighting, and irrigation, among other features. The work, remarked El Paso Council member Cassandra Hernandez, is a testament to the City of El Paso "honoring its past and forging a dynamic future." In comments prepared for the El Paso Times, Hernandez added that the road reconstruction project will "transform the area's infrastructure, enhancing safety and accessibility for everyone, especially visitors staying at nearby hotels." The $8.4 million is coming through the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Commission. If all goes as planned, actual work on the Buffalo Soldier Road will begin during the winter of 2026-2027. By Garry Boulard ![]() The national rental market is about to see a significant tenant change, and it’s all due to people who were born when Bill Clinton was president. According to a new study released by the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, Generation Z, or those in the 13 to 27 years of age range, are on the verge of flooding the rental scene. “Generation Z is now the only generation adding rental households,” says the study, a number that will almost certainly continue to grow as older generations, in particular the Millennials, “are leaving rental units due to homeownership transitions or mortality.” Officially, Generation Z is comprised of people born between 1997 and 2012, meaning that their current ages range between 11 and 26. It’s the portion of this population that is 18 and above, according to the Harvard study, that is about to become the largest demographic for the nation’s apartment complexes and communities. “The number of renter households Gen Z adds in the next 15 years will be an important pillar of rental housing demand,” says the report. And the “extent to which the size of the Gen Z population grows in the next 15 years ultimately could determine whether the number of renter households in the US grows, stabilizes, or declines in the coming years.” One thing is certain, says the report: “After decades of driving growth, the number of renter households headed by Millennials” has peaked and is now on the way down. Indeed, continues the report, the Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, have now reached an age when “more households are transitioning into homeownership rather than forming new rental households.” At some point during the Great Recession, the Millennials, who up to then had made up a significantly smaller segment of the rental market compared with Generation X and the Baby Boomers, all of a sudden became dominant. That dominance saw their numbers increase from 14 million households in 2012 to more than 16 million by 2019. Generation X, during that same period of time, declined from around 13 million to 11 million. Although a large number of Baby Boomers sold their homes during the Great Recession and re-entered the rental market, their overall numbers declined from just over 10 million rental households to 9 million as of last year. Market analysts are now trying to get a better feel for what Generation Z wants in terms of their renting and consumer tastes. According to a Pew Research Center report, members of the Generation Z are “more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation, and they are on track to be the most well-educated generation yet.” The Pew report added: “they are also digital natives who have little or no memory of the world as it existed before smartphones.” That Generation Z is regarded as a promising rental segment is seen in a survey conducted this summer by the site RealPage, which indicated that a majority of respondents in this age group saw renting an apartment as a better choice than buying a house because of affordability issues. In fact, according to a New York Times story published in August, more than a third of Generation Z members responding to one survey said they regarded homeownership as “something they think they’ll never be able to achieve.” Nearly a third of Generation Z, responding to another question, currently live with their parents, “and plan on staying with them as a long-term housing solution.” By Garry Boulard ![]() A major semiconductor equipment maker has announced plans to build a permanent presence in Scottsdale and to spend upwards of $325 million doing so. ASM International, which was founded in 1968 and has been based in the city of Almere in the Netherlands, specializes in the building of semiconductor water processing equipment, among other things. The company has facilities in some 14 countries and has been a part of the southern Arizona high-tech manufacturing scene since 1976. Now ASM wants to build what will be a 250,000-square-foot headquarters and plant near Scottsdale Road and Arizona State Route 101. The project will go up on 21-acre site and will house expanded space for research and development. ASM has also committed to investing in “leading edge-lab equipment and state of the art infrastructure not just for research and development, but also for renewable energy, a water recycling facility, and other sustainability features.” In celebrating the ASM decision, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs said the new facility will have the effect of “deepening our semiconductor ecosystem.” Benjamin Loh, chief executive officer of ASM, said the decision to build in Scottsdale speaks to an “exciting time for ASM and semiconductors in general.” Loh also remarked that his company’s big investment in Scottsdale “will substantially expand our research and development activities, further strengthening Arizona as a hub for top-notch semiconductor innovation.” ASM’s ties to Arizona are long and deep. It currently works with more than two dozen suppliers in the state and has an Arizona workforce of around 800 people. The company has said that it plans on hiring up to five hundred more people between now and 2028. By Garry Boulard ![]() Nearly $140 million in funding for a wide variety of facility projects at the main Albuquerque campus of the University of New Mexico and its sister campuses may be approved by state lawmakers this coming spring. The New Mexico Education Department has given the OK to a list of projects that it would like to see the legislators approve as capital outlays, beginning with the largest, at $60.5 million, to plan, design, and build phase one of a new humanities and social sciences complex on the main Albuquerque campus. That main campus is also up for $5.1 million to demolish the Humanities and Ortega Hall buildings, Brutalist structures which date to 1971. Up to $45 million is being requested for the building of a new College of Pharmacy structure, along with $15 million to put up a cancer center, both of which will be a part of UNM's Health Sciences Center. The school's Gallup campus is in line for a combination of nearly $5 million for renovations and updates to the Gurley Hall, which is regarded as the "front door to the campus," and houses administrative assistance offices, among other services. Around $4.6 million will target general facility improvements on UNM's Los Alamos campus, along with $1 million to renovate the Student Success Center. The Taos campus is up for $1.5 million for the phase one construction of its Space STEM Center, and another $1.1 million for renovation work on the Fred Peralta Hall, which was built in 1996 and houses a series of woodworking, sculpture, and drawing studio space. A final $1 million is being requested for the phase one improvements to the nursing and health sciences facility on the school's Valencia campus. State lawmakers will review these requests in a one-month 2024 legislative session scheduled to begin on January 16 and end on February 15. By Garry Boulard ![]() The construction industry has seen the creation of more than 200,000 new jobs in the last year, even though the latest increase in November was only 2,000, according to a just-released Bureau of Labor Statistics report. The heavy and civil engineering sectors was up by a substantial 3,030 jobs last month, with nonresidential construction employment seeing a 1,400-job increase. At the same time, the nonresidential specialty trade sector was off by around 800 jobs. Looking at the latest figures, Anirban Basu, chief economist with the American Builders and Contractors, noted that the construction industry overall has "added jobs at a significantly faster pace than the broader economy over the past year." But in a sobering note, Basu added in a statement that "faster hiring in the industry has coincided with worsening labor shortages, and that has led to rapid increases in labor costs." The national unemployment rate is now at 3.7%, relatively unchanged from where things stood a year ago when the rate came in at 3.6%. The highest November rate was seen in 2020, just a little over half a year after the Covid 19 breakout, when it stood at 6.7%. Looking at it from another angle, November's 199,000 new jobs was somewhat on the low side: September saw 262,000 additional jobs, while November of 2022 was up by 290,000 jobs. The biggest most recent one-month gain was recorded in February of 2022, when the nation added more than 904,000 jobs. The largest industry gainers in November were seen in the healthcare sector, which added 77,000 jobs; government, up by 49,000; and manufacturing, with a 28,000 increase. The latest numbers were also particular to recent events. Notes the New York Times: "The increase in employment includes tens of thousands of autoworkers and actors who returned to their jobs after strikes, and others in related businesses that had been stalled by the walkouts, meaning underlying job growth is slightly weaker." In a statement from the White House, President Biden lauded the November figures, remarking that more than 14 million new jobs have now been created since he took office in January of 2021. "That's more than 14 million additional Americans who know the dignity and peace of mind that comes with a paycheck," Biden remarked. By Garry Boulard |
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