Search Results
Discussion Paper
Is Rental Assistance Getting to Those in Need?
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: 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
Introducing Rural Spotlights
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: 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 ...
Discussion Paper
After the Eviction Moratorium: How Are Renters Faring?
An estimated 2.7 million U.S. households received an eviction filing in 2018. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, a wave of federal, state, and local regulations halted the eviction process as renters coped with employment disruption and income loss. The federal eviction moratorium ended in August 2021, which raises the question: How have renters in the Fifth District been faring over the past year? Evidence suggests that evictions are increasing back to pre-pandemic levels but are not surging higher as some had feared. This post examines how renters in the Fifth District are faring ...
Discussion Paper
Following the Money: State and Local Funding for Community Colleges in the Fifth District
Public colleges and universities (including community colleges) represent the largest sector of undergraduate higher education in the United States. In the fall of 2023, community colleges and public four-year universities enrolled 73 percent of all undergraduate students. These institutions receive most of the public state and local funds designated for higher education, but the level and composition of funding varies across states and institution types.State funding formulas have historically directed significantly more money toward four-year institutions than to community colleges — a ...
Discussion Paper
Households Confront the End of Pandemic-Era Assistance Programs
The U.S. government, beginning in March 2020, took extraordinary measures in response to the emergence and spread of the novel coronavirus. Through policy changes and major spending bills, the federal government directed funds to help states, localities, and households manage the economic challenges caused by the pandemic. Two of the many measures that the government took to directly aid households were increasing the flexibility and benefits of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and pausing federal student loan payments. Now that enhanced SNAP benefits have ended and ...
Discussion Paper
What Might Cuts to the Federal Government Workforce Mean for the Fifth District?
Federal government employment spans the country, but there is a concentration in the District of Columbia and spread through the surrounding counties in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Historically, the federal government presence has both insulated the region from the effects of economic downturns and also created additional challenges in the case of sequestration in 2013 or during short-lived government shutdowns.Understanding the economy of the Fifth District, therefore, requires sizing and preparing for any adverse economic impact of cuts in federal government employment and ...