Search Results
Journal Article
District Digest: Working on Wellness: The Rural Health and Employment Link
Adverse health events can be disruptive to employment. A health shock, such as suffering an injury or developing a chronic condition, can limit an individual's ability to perform the physical and mental demands of work, potentially leading to lower productivity, fewer hours, and even a labor force exit. But the relationship between health and employment doesn't end there — employment outcomes also influence health outcomes. Employment is a key social determinant of health, supporting well-being through financial stability and access to employer-provided health insurance. For some, workplace ...
Journal Article
District Digest: Community Colleges: Beyond the Numbers
There is enduring demand for postsecondary education that can provide the diverse range of skills, knowledge, and experience required for the jobs of today. For some postsecondary institutions, traditional metrics designed around the four-year degree model (i.e., graduation rates for first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students) are reasonable measures of how successfully they provide that training. For other institutions, such as community colleges, metrics like the Richmond Fed's Survey of Community College Outcomes are designed to more accurately measure what they do and who they serve. ...
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
District Digest: Measuring Social Capital Across the Fifth District
How cliquey is your community? How often do people from different income groups in your area befriend one another? Do your neighbors volunteer their time to charitable causes? Social scientists have long studied social capital — the strength and value of social networks within communities — as well as its effects on economic, health, and political outcomes. Political scientists have linked higher civic engagement with the strength of democratic institutions, while economists have studied the role that friendships across socioeconomic statuses might have in fostering economic mobility.
Journal Article
District Digest: Community Colleges as Anchor Institutions in Rural Areas
The Fifth Federal Reserve District — comprising Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, most of West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. — is home to 122 public two-year institutions that have a wide range of both traditional academic and technical programs. More than half of these community colleges are located in rural counties. The 66 rural community colleges, like the private and public four-year institutions of higher education in rural areas, play an anchor institution role in their communities. But this role is not always accounted for in the formulas that federal, state, ...
Journal Article
District Digest: Understanding SNAP's Role
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a key component of the United States' social safety net and supports millions of Americans annually by providing food vouchers for households with low income and assets. SNAP supports households enduring persistent poverty as well as those temporarily in economic distress, as its enrollment expands during recessions to accommodate the unemployed. Economists Robert Moffitt of Johns Hopkins University and James Ziliak of the University of Kentucky have explained that SNAP operates like an automatic stabilizer — that is, a counterweight ...
Journal Article
District Digest: Preparing to Work: The Demand for Postsecondary Education and How It's Changing
Starting around a decade before the COVID-19 pandemic, and more acutely during the pandemic itself, postsecondary enrollment declined — most notably among community colleges, both in the Fifth District and in the United States as a whole. Yet the 2023-2024 academic year saw a shift in that trend as enrollment grew once again. What's going on?The unsatisfying answer is that there are conflicting forces at work, and it's hard to tell which will prevail. But one thing is clear: Combined with the anticipated decline in the college-age population, high costs of four-year degrees, and changing ...
Discussion Paper
Beyond Academic Assistance: Key Findings on Wraparound Services at Community Colleges
A student's ability to succeed in higher education often hinges on factors outside of the classroom. Not unlike other educational institutions, community colleges work to address barriers to success through a variety of support services, commonly referred to as "wraparound services." These supports can, for example, offer career services, provide student parents with child care, help students who work navigate an unexpected loss of income, and ensure that off-campus students have reliable transportation to get to class.
Discussion Paper
Making It a Priority: How State Workforce Goals and Higher Education Align
In order to ensure that a state's workforce development infrastructure is prepared to support their workforce needs, states seek to understand and publicize the jobs that will be in future demand. Occupational projections provide a glimpse into aggregate, long-term trends, but states seek more targeted information to align their supply of workers to meet any imminent shifts in demand. Since there is no national standard for how states determine these high-demand jobs, the criteria they choose provide insight into a state's economic and policy goals. Our analysis of the Fifth District shows ...
Discussion Paper
The Federal Reserve’s COVID-19 Community Impact Survey
The Federal Reserve developed and fielded a survey of community-based organizations to better understand the impacts of COVID-19 on their operations and the communities they serve. Fifth District respondents in April and June expressed that while organizations and communities are experiencing significant disruptions, effects are expected to be longer-lasting for the latter.