Regional Matters

On March 13, 2020, the President declared a national state of emergency and by March 16, every state and the District of Columbia had declared states of emergency, all due to the rapid escalation of positive cases of COVID-19. However, Fifth District firms were reporting impacts from the virus before the emergency declarations and the initiation of social distancing mandates in states and localities across the country.

The Crooked Road trail celebrates the cultural history of Appalachian music and arts. In 2015, it was estimated to bring $6.4 million in tourism spending to the region annually and continues to promote growth in southwest Virginia’s tourism industry today.

Explore how payroll employment growth in Maryland has differed from the nation since the Great Recession in this Regional Matters article.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 27.7 percent of individuals worked outside their county of residence in 2018. This Regional Matters article presents data on commute times and asks: how do commute times differ for residents of rural and urban counties in the Fifth District?

College attainment differs greatly between Fifth District counties, as do unemployment rates and earnings by education level from state to state.

Investment by community development financial institutions (CDFIs) varies by county and between urban and rural areas. Are these variations driven by differences between urban and rural CDFIs in the U.S. and the Fifth District?

A special survey on hiring and wages, conducted in November, showed that a majority of Fifth District firms expect to hire or hold payrolls steady and plan to use wage increases to attract and retain workers over the next twelve months.

Young adults are buying houses at lower rates than in previous generations. In the Fifth District, the gap between young and older adult homeownership rates is particularly high in rural counties. What is behind this trend?

The Richmond Fed conducts monthly surveys of business conditions. The information collected are aggregated and combined into several individual diffusion indices. But what kind of information do diffusion indices reveal?

Since 2005, 155 hospitals in rural America have closed. Eighteen of those closures were in the Fifth Federal Reserve District. Why do we see hospitals in rural areas closing at a higher rate than at any time since the mid-1980s?