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The New River Valley Regional Commission is an example of how a regional development organization can galvanize innovative, sustainable regional and local housing strategies to serve its small towns and rural communities.  

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, have people moved away from urban cores in favor of more rural areas?

This new system for measuring community college outcomes better reflects how the institutions are serving their students and communities than current data collection methods.

Housing and transportation represent the two largest living expenses in most households, but local investment can address households’ travel needs.

Although U.S. employment in manufacturing has decreased since the 1980s, the industry has become a vital employer in rural areas, where it pays above-average wages.

Small businesses remained challenged throughout 2021 and those that sought financing to bridge funding gaps experienced a higher rate of denials than before the pandemic.

Revised historical monthly employment and unemployment data provide new clarity on the track of labor market recovery in Fifth District states.

Intermediary organizations, including anchor institutions, rural development hubs, and collective impact backbone organizations, play an important role in rural capacity building. 

Congress allocated $65 billion for broadband in the IIJA, but bridging the digital divide will require cooperation among federal, state and local actors.

Fifth District firms report that two years into the pandemic, they still cannot provide enough goods and services to completely meet customer demand.

The GoodCare Program in Virginia helps aspiring workers complete career pathways in health care, addressing workforce shortages in a sector essential to equitable pandemic recovery. 

The Fed’s Community Impact Survey reveals COVID-19 disruptions to community organizations’ operations and the low-income communities they serve.

Fifth District firms increase employment and raise wages in response to a changing economy. 

According to the latest census data, the share of Americans living in rural areas continued to decline over the past decade, while urban areas have grown.

In Florence County, the Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing Technology and its Gould Business Incubator are fostering an entrepreneurial ecosystem and fueling small business development in South Carolina.

In a tight labor market, Fifth District firms struggle to attract qualified workers. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics started releasing state-level data from the Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), giving a unique perspective on labor demand around our District.

While all sectors of higher education have experienced declines, community colleges have been hardest hit: this fall, community college enrollment declined significantly for the second consecutive year.

Heirs' property, land passed through generations without a clear title, is an unstable form of landownership that can lead to lost capital and wealth.

The Danville region in Virginia has moved the needle on early childhood education and now has an ecosystem in place to help address future challenges.

The labor force was pushed into a massive remote work experiment in 2020. What are employers in the Fifth District planning, and what challenges do they anticipate?

This post explores lagged recovery in labor force participation for Black and Hispanic women that started at the onset of the COVID-19 recession.

Fifth District states have amassed budget surpluses over the past few years. Additionally, state and local governments received aid through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Now, states must decide how to spend both.

Focusing on a complete household’s needs, Garrett County Community Action Committee’s integrated “2Gen approach” links children to high-quality early education and their parents to services that build financial security.

Manufacturers have recently seen an increase in orders, but disruptions in the supply chain have made meeting demand a challenge.

Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) like Woodlands Community Lenders are uniquely positioned to help rural towns address unique challenges through place-based revitalization and by attracting investment.

Surveyed Fifth District firms are raising wages at an above normal pace as they struggle to fill open positions.

Vance-Granville Community College’s early college high schools and workforce programs are improving education and job opportunities for area residents.

Choptank Electric Cooperative on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is an example of how many electric cooperatives are providing broadband service in rural communities.

In our new Rural Spotlight series, we explore solutions to the economic challenges faced by rural communities in the Fifth District.

This post looks at the current assessment of roads and bridges in the Fifth District and how states have recently allocated federal funds.

This post explains how the newest round of stimulus dollars can be used to help governments and communities recover from the pandemic.

Recent legislation has increased emergency rental assistance for renters struggling due to the pandemic, but efficient disbursement has been a challenge in many states.

Regional businesses are returning to pre-COVID-19 operations as workers return to the office and business travel picks up.

Community college enrollment declined significantly across the country in fall 2020, breaking the typical pattern of increased enrollment during a recession.

The economic recovery enabled by the vaccine rollout has increased demand for Fifth District goods and services. But can supply keep up with demand?

In Fifth District states, as in most of the nation, spending appears to be falling short of what is required to support students most in need.

Surveyed firms shared how the balance of remote versus in-office work has shifted in the past year and what changes they anticipate in the future.

K-12 remote learning exposes divisions in access to digital resources. A federal broadband service subsidy and new satellite technology may help bridge the gap.

An estimated 30 percent of Fifth District businesses are minority-owned, but this trails the minority share of the population.

Rural black Fifth District communities have long suffered fewer economic opportunities and thus worse economic outcomes.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, public school enrollment has decreased overall and across racial groups, with the steepest declines in grades Pre-K through elementary.

Labor force participation took a big hit from the pandemic. How then should we interpret states’ reported unemployment rates?

Educational attainment has increased across the Fifth District, but there are large geographic and racial disparities, according to the 2019 American Community Survey estimates.

This article provides some history on the evolution of the Fifth District population across race and the rural-urban continuum since the late 1800s.

The most recent stimulus bill extends many 2020 changes to the unemployment insurance program but reduces the supplement to weekly benefits.

Fifth District business surveys indicate that after a volatile year, firms remain uncertain about when or if they will return to pre-COVID levels of business activity.

Firms report how the coronavirus is influencing their employment levels, hiring plans, and wages in our annual survey.

The COVID-19 pandemic has depressed housing security and increased eviction risk for renters in the Fifth District. Although helpful for tenants, some federal pandemic-response provisions are ending in December.

Job postings, employment by income level, and business formation data tells the story of labor market activity during the economic downturn caused by COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe economic distress in the Fifth District, but the regional housing market has proven remarkably resilient.

The COVID-19 pandemic is forecast to negatively affect state and local government revenues. In the absence of sizable federal transfers, this is likely to disrupt spending on critical services — including education — in ways that may have long-lasting effects.

How did rural and urban counties compare on measures of health outcomes and drivers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic?

As the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to shift their approach to instruction, the Fed and other economic and financial literacy organizations pivoted, too.

July data from the Household Pulse Survey reveals some of the reasons people have not been working and how households met their spending needs.

Businesses report on their progress since the start of the pandemic in our July and August surveys.

The digital access “homework gap” most severely affects students in poor households and is compounded in rural areas by a lack of broadband internet infrastructure.

Policy changes and the unique nature of the COVID-19 pandemic may impact the way labor market health is evaluated going forward.

Although the Fifth District’s black population tends to have higher employment and educational attainment compared to the nation’s, there are still significant disparities relative to whites.

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.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented amount of job loss, yet only a few industries have accounted for a significant portion of it. How do these industry-specific trends in the Fifth District compare to the U.S. overall, and is there any relationship between recent job recovery and states’ phased reopening plans?

The COVID-19 pandemic has put housing stability at the forefront of public policy discussions, and home repair is a critical piece of that conversation. What were total home repair costs in Baltimore prior to the pandemic, and how might COVID-19 impact home repair?

The number of hours worked by hourly employees dropped considerably in the United States and the Fifth District in March but showed signs of recovery in May and June. A look at high frequency data shows how hours worked by hourly employees in the food and drink, leisure and entertainment, and retail industries have been impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 has disrupted traditional higher education institutions and is forcing institutions to make substantial changes to their plans for the coming academic year.

Job postings dropped considerably in the United States and Fifth District in March and April but showed signs of recovery in May. 

While most businesses surveyed have suffered some negative effects and loss of revenue as result of COVID-19, most remained open and operating, at least partially.

As part of the U.S. response to COVID-19, unemployment insurance recipients are receiving increased weekly payments. For many individuals in the Fifth District, these enhanced unemployment benefits are greater than the wages they earned while at work.

The measures taken to slow the spread of COVID-19 have not only led to a sharp decline in employment and an unprecedented rise in unemployment but have negatively impacted state and local governments that depend on income and sales taxes as primary sources of revenue.

Federal, state, and local government financial support for consumers in response to COVID-19 is widespread, but not universal. Who’s left out from existing governmental support programs?

Over the past several weeks, social distancing and shutdowns have impacted our economy. Fifth District firms continued to tell us how COVID-19 has affected their business operations in recent surveys.

What does hospital capacity look like in the Fifth District, and how might rural hospital closings impact the current crisis?

How many COVID-19 cases will there be in the coming days and months? While the Fifth District appears to be past the peak number of daily cases, a wide range of future outcomes is still possible.

Financial institutions that lend to small businesses are on the front lines of financial support. How are these lenders supporting small businesses during COVID-19?

In recent weeks, unemployment insurance claims have hit record numbers. But what exactly do unemployment insurance programs cover? And what roles do states play?

Between mid-March and early April, more than 360,000 Virginians filed for unemployment. What does this mean for employment measures and the state's economy?

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across the country, Americans are taking measures to distance themselves from their communities, both voluntarily and by mandate. What measures have Fifth District jurisdictions taken and what might this mean for the Fifth District economy?

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.

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 have been buying houses at lower rates. This gap between young and older adults is particularly high in Fifth District rural counties.

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?

Why are hospitals in rural areas closing at a higher rate, and what are the consequences for these communities?

Mortgage debt is a smaller share of household debt, while student loan debt has become a larger share. Meanwhile, delinquencies for auto loans have increased.

How serious is the digital divide across the country and in the Fifth District? It depends on who you ask.

Although firms in the Fifth District received approximately $129 billion in contracts from the federal government in fiscal year 2018, some of those contracts span several years or were subcontracted out. How much did firms receive after adjusting for those factors? 

The labor force participation rate varies considerably across Fifth District jurisdictions, from West Virginia's 53.3 percent to the District of Columbia's 70.4 percent. What is driving the differences among jurisdictions? 

Recently revised payroll employment data for 2018 showed that fewer jobs were added in the Fifth District than originally reported. The largest downward revisions occurred with data for North Carolina, West Virginia, and Virginia. 

As of December 2018, unemployment rates declined in every county and independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia from December 2017. But how do the most recent rates compare with previous lows?

According to a survey conducted in November 2018, many Fifth District businesses plan on increasing employment in the next year and are generally offering higher starting wages for at least some job types.

Although changes in educational attainment, employment status, and median earnings were inconsistent across Fifth District jurisdictions in 2017, most saw lower unemployment and higher median earnings.

By 2016, after the passage of the ACA and expansions to Medicaid, the share of the population with insurance increased in every state in the Fifth District. However, those improvements were not evenly distributed across states or counties and were more substantial in states where Medicaid was expanded.

In June 2018, the Richmond Fed asked its survey participants about the expected impacts of the tariffs imposed on imported steel and aluminum. While about half of the firms surveyed expected negative impacts to their own businesses and to the U.S. economy, there was a good portion of firms that believed the tariffs would be good for the overall U.S. economy, even if their firms would not directly benefit.

Ride-sharing services have been competing with the taxi industry and encountering regulatory spats, yet they have grown markedly, particularly around the District of Columbia.

Natural gas production has experienced tremendous growth over the last decade in the U.S. and West Virginia and continues to grow. In West Virginia, six new pipeline projects have been proposed. How will these pipelines service the natural gas market, and how long until they are in service? What has the impact been on job growth and wages?

In April, we surveyed firms about their adoption of technology and how it might translate into prices and employment in the next few years. Most firms reported adopting new technology, although many did not anticipate the technology to notably impact their pricing or employment decisions.

Charlotte, N.C., has the most diverse industrial mix of any Fifth District city. What causes industry diversity in cities?

Revised employment data show fewer jobs added in the Fifth District than originally reported. By December 2017 (the most recent month revised), total employment was revised lower by 75,300 jobs or 0.5 percent.

December 2017 marked the 10-year anniversary of the start of the economic downturn which would ultimately evolve into the Great Recession. As bad as the Great Recession was nationally, South Carolina's descent into the trough was steeper. And its recovery has been more impressive, particularly in the Charleston and Upstate regions.

Beginning with the release of our February 2018 survey results, we began to report a few new variables in our Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity and Fifth District Survey of Service Sector Activity. What are they and what can they tell us?

In 2016, every Fifth District jurisdiction, along with the nation, saw an increase in the share of the over-25 population with a bachelor’s degree or higher. What else changed since 2015?

Ten years after the housing market collapse, activity in the single-family market remains somewhat subdued. Despite rising prices and low inventories, single-family construction has increased very gradually. Are there impediments to new housing supply?

A November 2017 survey of Fifth District businesses found that most firms plan on increasing hiring in the next year as well as raising wages to attract and retain workers, though not for all positions.

The Richmond Fed worked with NCEast Alliance to facilitate a business and industry roundtable meeting that focused on payroll employment growth.

The effects of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma on Fifth District firms were largely indirect and negative, although some businesses reported positive economic impacts.

The Fifth District economy has been increasingly driven by urban areas. How do we understand the existence, growth and decline of cities?

The Fifth District Hispanic population has been exhibiting significant growth, but labor market indicators provide insight on income disparity relative to population overall.

Fifth District states — especially West Virginia — are struggling with the opioid epidemic as drug use and opioid overdose deaths continue to rise.

The dynamics of firm creation and exit are an important engine of economic growth. Researchers have noted that there has been a slowing in business dynamics in the United States in recent decades. Is the same true for the Fifth District and our jurisdictions?

Which industries in the Fifth District contributed the most to real GDP in 2016? How does that compare to employment by industry and which industries generate the most output per worker?

The Fifth District has a disproportionately high share of federal government employment and contract dollars, and could be more heavily affected by reductions than other comparable areas. 

It is generally stated, but somewhat disputed, that around 11 million unauthorized immigrants currently reside in the United States. Why is it important to know more about the size and characteristics of the unauthorized population? And what role should different levels of governments play in enforcing immigration laws?

Getting outdoors is healthy for individuals--and maybe for the economy. How large is the economic impact and who measures it?

While increased global integration required painful adjustments for some workers and communities as well as companies and even entire industries, there have also been significant benefits to this global interconnectedness, including in the Carolinas.

How has the Garrett County economy progressed since the Great Recession? How has the labor market improved? Has business activity stabilized?

Fifth District businesses have expressed concerns over a growing skills mismatch in the local labor force. As a result, some have turned to apprenticeship programs.

On Jan. 18, the Board of Governors released the most recent installment of the Beige Book report. With this report comes a new design. What changes can you expect, and why now?

This post takes a look at the current state of educational attainment across jurisdictions and highlights some of the information available in new reports published by the Richmond Fed.

Earlier this year, we reported the results of a special survey on hiring and wages. A similar survey was conducted in November ... the results are in.

The qualitative data conveyed through surveys, or gathered at roundtable meetings with business firms or our own Bank directors are very valuable pieces of information. However, summarizing and extracting meaning out of this information are very challenging tasks. So how can we make sense out of this information?

The Richmond Fed publishes a series of diffusion indices based off of surveys of manufacturing and service sector firms across the Fifth District. These indices help us to understand business conditions in our region in a timely and more comprehensive way.

There has been a dramatic change in the energy sector in recent decades. With lower prices, what is the outlook going forward? What has the impact been on West Virginia, the Fifth District’s largest energy producer?

In 2015, nearly 4 million Virginia residents commuted to work; however, the means of transportation and average commute time varied substantially by location.

Income has been growing, but many households have not fully recovered from the recession. Income inequality persists at the national level and varies by state and metro area within the Fifth District.

Manufacturing accounted for 9.6 percent of total private sector employment and 11.8 percent of total output in the Fifth District in 2015. What kind of things are produced in the District? Where? And what are the values of those goods?

Virginia gained jobs at a brisk pace during 2015, but the pace slowed during the first five months of 2016 and has only recently picked up again. Employment growth by industry and by metro area varies substantially. 

The United States' top three trade partners are China, Canada, and Mexico. Many of the Fifth District jurisdictions also trade extensively with these nations. What goods are being exported? And what other countries are top trade partners with Fifth District states? 

The Fifth District labor market was hit hard during the recession. The recovery was slow. Which industry sectors were hit the hardest and how have they fared since? Which sectors have grown the fastest?

A look at the educational attainment in the Carolinas may yield clues as to how well the region will adjust to technological disruptions. 

How much have mortgage markets improved in recent months, and how do current foreclosure and forfeiture rates compare to before the housing crisis?

There are 12 Federal Reserve Banks across the country: How did one land in Richmond, Virginia?

In May, the Richmond Fed added questions to our regular monthly surveys to explore employer opinions on hiring, employee retention, and wage plans.

A brief update on the state of the craft brewing industry in the Fifth District.

Job opportunities for workers with different skill levels have changed in recent decades. Which skill sets are most in demand? What do wages look like for these professions?

In this new web series, we will focus on topics and data related to urban and regional economic issues, particularly those that are important to areas within the Fifth Federal Reserve District.