Data reveals rising economic 'distress' across America despite post-pandemic growth

[Agonized-Statism]

The article comes with some neat maps too

According to EIG, which uses US Census Bureau data to sort districts by economic well-being, roughly 52 million Americans live in a "distressed" zip code. That's up from 50 million in 2018.

Distress scores are calculated based on weighted factors. Those factors include the number of residents with a high school diploma, the poverty rate, the number of adults not working, the housing vacancy rate, the median income ratio, changes in employment, and changes in the number of business establishments.

EIG discovered that in recent years, urban areas across the country have become increasingly "distressed" while the surrounding suburbs are considered more "prosperous."

[...]

Large urban counties, which EIG previously defined as intersecting with "an urban area with a population of 250,000 or higher," have experienced major losses: Between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021, those counties saw an aggregate decrease of 812,000 residents.

According to the same report, “exurban and suburban counties continued to grow the fastest in 2022 after seeing major influxes of domestic migration during the early pandemic era." After adding 931,000 people in 2021, the same counties added another 832,000 residents in 2022.

“Obviously, the pandemic has exacerbated this trend as well, where people are able to live further out from cities and still do their jobs either remotely or in a hybrid model,” Benzow said.

A recent note from Goldman Sachs reiterated this point: "Domestic migrants have left the largest cities, with about half moving to metro counties with populations of 250k to 1 million. ... The latest figures show that this demographic shift that began at the outset of the pandemic — driven by virus fears and remote work opportunities — not only had not reversed but, in fact, had continued through mid-2023."

The pandemic also highlighted significant wealth disparities among populations: Those who had the financial means to move out of cities and into suburbs did so, leaving behind lower-income residents in urban areas.

Thread theme, gotta love the economic "recovery"

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Keep on rockin in the free world

[LostFellow]

The way economic distress is being calculated, factoring change in employment and change in establishments over the past 5 years, makes this not as accurate in expensive city centers that were doing exceptionally well pre-covid, and are still doing great but just not as well.

For New York, there's a zip code in Upper East Side/Lenox Hill that's considered "mid tier", and half the zip codes in Midtown, Hudson Yards, Soho, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, etc. are "mid tier" or lower, which is hilarious. A lot of these are bolstered by housing vacancy rates much higher than the national average as well, but the vacancies due to landlords not wanting to lower residential or commercial rents and instead trying to ride out the "patagonia vest recession" are not the same as the vacancies on the south side of Chicago lol.

The index works well for a good portion of America, but I think it'd be better without the two change factors. Also the the top-line 50 million to 52 million increase of 4% is better understood with the context that the US population as a whole grew by ~2.6% during the same time period. Things aren't great, but it's not like we're in a secret second iteration of 70s stagflation.

[quesaisje]

The way economic distress is being calculated, factoring change in employment and change in establishments over the past 5 years, makes this not as accurate in expensive city centers that were doing exceptionally well pre-covid, and are still doing great but just not as well.

For New York, there's a zip code in Upper East Side/Lenox Hill that's considered "mid tier", and half the zip codes in Midtown, Hudson Yards, Soho, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, etc. are "mid tier" or lower, which is hilarious. A lot of these are bolstered by housing vacancy rates much higher than the national average as well, but the vacancies due to landlords not wanting to lower residential or commercial rents and instead trying to ride out the "patagonia vest recession" are not the same as the vacancies on the south side of Chicago lol.

The index works well for a good portion of America, but I think it'd be better without the two change factors. Also the the top-line 50 million to 52 million increase of 4% is better understood with the context that the US population as a whole grew by ~2.6% during the same time period. Things aren't great, but it's not like we're in a secret second iteration of 70s stagflation.

I usually walk away from these models feeling disappointed. It's rare for them to improve enough on a more legible metric that the extra work and layers of abstraction seem worth the bother.

Most of the time, the input is more compelling than the output. Metrics like the poverty rate or median income have their issues, but at least there's an immediate connection to something concrete.