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Discussion Paper
Housing Affordability Challenges for Renters and Homeowners in the Rural Fifth District
As previously discussed in this blog, homeownership affordability has been on the decline in rural communities throughout the Fifth District. The combination of elevated home prices and rising mortgage rates have made homeownership harder to achieve. But affordability challenges aren't limited to prospective homebuyers. Many existing rural homeowners and renters — especially low-to-moderate income (LMI) households — are burdened by their housing costs.
Journal Article
Employment Barriers in the Rural Fifth District
In Virginia, 75 percent of working-age adults are employed, in line with the national average of 74 percent. But there are significant disparities across geographies. In Loudoun County, Va., in the Washington, D.C., metro area, the share is 84.1 percent. On the other side of the state, in Lee County, just 48.2 percent of working-age adults are employed. This is true of many socioeconomic indicators: Aggregation is necessary to understand broad outcomes, but with aggregation, we lose important geographic distinctions and, thus, the opportunity to identify both challenges and solutions. This is ...
Journal Article
Resolving the Gap in Teacher Supply
"'Never seen it this bad': America faces catastrophic teacher shortage" read an Aug. 4 headline from the Washington Post. Teacher shortages have been a concern in recent years, as the number of people graduating with a teaching credential has not been sufficient to keep up with teaching job openings. Shortages are particularly severe in certain fields, known as "critical needs areas," which include science, math, instruction for English language learners, special education, and early childhood education. In many cases, rural school districts have been hit harder than urban and suburban ...
Discussion Paper
Hispanic Postsecondary Enrollment Increases Throughout the Fifth District
Colleges and universities across the country have become more racially and ethnically diverse over the last decade. While 62.6 percent of students enrolled in higher education in the U.S. identified as white in 2010, that rate had fallen to 54.0 percent in 2020. (Note: throughout the article, white refers to non-Hispanic white and Black refers to non-Hispanic Black.) The percentage of students identifying as Black also fell, declining from 15.0 percent in 2010 to 13.1 percent in 2020. So which minority groups experienced growth? While the Asian share of enrollment grew from 6.3 percent to 7.7 ...
Discussion Paper
Teacher Wages and Purchasing Power in the Fifth District
Teacher pay is notorious for being low considering teachers' vital role educating young people and preparing them for lifelong learning. At a national level, the difference between teachers' average wages and those of other college graduates has been growing over the past 25 years. But aggregate statistics obscure local variation in teacher wages. As seen in a recent District Digest article on resolving the gap in teacher supply, teachers' starting salaries vary throughout the Fifth District.
Discussion Paper
Intersecting Costs: Housing and Transportation in the Rural Fifth District
Our recent issue of Econ Focus covered a number of challenges facing small towns and rural areas, including the need for affordable, quality housing for low- and middle-income households. Despite typically lower housing costs in rural areas compared to urban areas, nearly four out of 10 low- and middle-income households in the rural Fifth District are housing cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.Yet, access to housing is only part of the bigger story of households’ access to jobs, services, and amenities. Transportation also looms large. Housing ...
Discussion Paper
How Connected Are Counties in the Fifth District?
Access to expanded employment opportunities and local goods and services is an important factor explaining why certain rural areas are able to retain people and grow. However, this access is far from uniform across rural areas. One way of assessing the economic linkages across areas is by examining intercounty commuting flows. This post classifies rural areas based on commuting flows and uses this information to establish the degree of spatial interactions or connectivity across areas.
Discussion Paper
The Pandemic’s Toll on Minority Women in the Labor Force.
Briefing
The Pandemic, Child Care and Women’s Labor Force Participation
The pandemic has changed how households work, spend and care for children. In this Economic Brief, we highlight economic research that examines the patterns seen in women's work experiences in particular. We look at both the pandemic and, more generally, how shocks to the economy affect women's work decisions. Throughout, we will try to connect what we observe to households' broader economic environments and will emphasize — in the case of the pandemic — the role of away-from-home child care.
Discussion Paper
From Good Bones to Healthy Homes: Housing Quality in the Rural Fifth District
We've previously explored how rural Fifth District households encounter housing affordability challenges, finding low-to-moderate income (LMI) households to be at greatest risk. A home's quality can also profoundly affect residents' well-being. Resolving housing quality issues caused by repair needs can be quite costly. If left unaddressed, housing quality issues can lead to stress or chronic illness, which in turn can hurt adults' workforce activity and children's educational outcomes. As with affordability, not all households are equally likely to face housing quality challenges. In the ...