Birds of a Feather: Analysis Suggests People of Similar Income, Education Gravitate Toward Same Neighborhoods

Residential neighborhoods throughout U.S. metropolitan areas have become increasingly divided into high- and low-unemployment sections, and an analysis by an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis suggests that people may be "sorting"themselves by both income and education.

The analysis was conducted by Christopher Wheeler, writing in theMarch/April issue of Review, the Reserve Bank's bimonthly journal of economic and business issues. The publication is also available online at the St. Louis Fed's web site.

The rate of unemployment is one of the most basic indicators used togauge the economy's health. As the economy fluctuates between periods ofexpansion and recession, corresponding changes in the rate of unemploymentare observed.

Between 1980 and 2000, the aggregate national unemployment rate fell from 6.3 percent to 3.9 percent, suggesting that workers in the United States faced better unemployment prospects in 2000 than in 1980.

"Yet, underlying these figures," says Wheeler, "is a trend that is not widely known: Unemployed workers became increasingly concentrated in certain neighborhoods within the nation's metropolitan areas. That is, neighborhoods in the United States became increasingly polarized into two groups: those with high rates of unemployment and those with low rates."

Wheeler investigated three possible explanations for this trend:

• Urban decentralization; that is, the gradual movement of people from the central cities to the suburbs. "This may have reduced the employment opportunities of households that continue to live in historical city centers," says Wheeler, "thereby creating a cluster of joblessness within those inner-cities."
• Changes in the labor market, such as declining union membership and the shift of employment away from manufacturing toward other sectors, may have reduced the employment opportunities for workers in certain neighborhoods more than others. "For example," says Wheeler, "if a city's low-to-middle-income communities are populated primarily by manufacturing workers, a decline in the manufacturing sector could result in higher unemployment in those areas. By the same token, if the residents of another neighborhood are employed predominantly in high-paying professional services, then a rise in the demand for those services may result in more jobs."
• Possible increase in the extent to which skilled and un-skilled workers are segregated across residential areas. "In other words, independent of either urban decentralization or shifts in union and industrial activity, the degree to which high- and low-skilled workers live in the same neighborhoods may have decreased over time could lead to a rising concentration of unemployed people." Analyzing unemployment data across nine broad industrial sectors, Wheeler finds little evidence to support the first two explanations. His results, however, did reveal a strong association between unemployment concentration and measures of both income segmentation and the segregation of college graduates across neighborhoods.

"A rising concentration of those who are unemployed seems to be related to an increase in the extent to which households have separated themselves into certain neighborhoods by both income and education," concludes Wheeler.


Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

EPA Ignored Own Rules on Toxic Release, Watchdog Says

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not adhere to its own rulemaking guidelines in all respects when developing the proposal to change toxic chemical reporting requirements, a government watchdog finds.

U.S. industry uses billions of pounds of chemicals to produce the nation’s goods and services. Releases of these chemicals during use or disposal can harm human health and the environment.

The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 requires facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use more than specified amounts of nearly 650 toxic chemicals to report their releases to water, air, and land. The EPA makes this data available to the public in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).

EPA last month finalized a proposal to increase the TRI reporting threshold to 2,000 pounds, quadrupling what facilities can release before they must disclose their releases and other waste management practices.

But EPA did not adhere to its own rulemaking guidelines in all respects when developing the proposal to change TRI reporting requirements, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress.

"We have identified several significant differences between the guidelines and the process EPA followed," GAO says in a new report.

Such states as California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey would lose information about toxic chemical releases in those states, GAO says. Some states could lose all quantitative information about releases of some chemicals, ranging from South Dakota to Georgia, the agency adds.

"We believe that the TRI reporting changes will likely have a significant impact on information available to the public about dozens of toxic chemicals from thousands of facilities in states and communities across the country," GAO says.


Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Enter your Email





Preview Powered by FeedBlitz

U.S. Must Do More To Improve Cyber Security, Industry Group Says

The U.S. federal government must significantly enhance its efforts to ensure the security of sensitive information, improve the security and resiliency of the critical information infrastructure and increase federal information assurance this year, according to the Cyber Security Industry Alliance.

"While the government has taken some positive steps forward to improve the state of information security, action has been decidedly mixed," says Liz Gasster, acting executive director and general counsel of CSIA. "CSIA commends the government for moving forward on several key initiatives including the Senate's ratification of the Council of Europe's Convention on Cyber Crime and the appointment of an assistant secretary for cyber security and telecommunications. However, we are discouraged by Congress' inability to pass a comprehensive federal law to protect sensitive personal information, even in the face of more than 100 million Americans having their data records exposed. In 2007, CSIA will work even harder to urge swift action from Congress to pass this much-needed legislation."

CSIA gave the federal government a grade of "D" for its cyber security efforts.

Members of the CSIA include Application Security, Inc.; CA, Inc. (NYSE:CA); BSI Management Systems; Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS);Crossroads Systems, Inc. (OTCBB Pink Sheets: CRDS.PK); Entrust, Inc.(Nasdaq: ENTU); F-Secure Corporation (HEX: FSC1V); Fortinet, Inc.; IBMInternet Security Systems Inc. (NYSE: IBM); iPass Inc. (Nasdaq: IPAS);McAfee, Inc. (NYSE: MFE); Mirage Networks; MXI Security; PGP Corporation;Qualys, Inc.; RSA, The Security Division of EMC (NYSE: EMC); SecureComputing Corporation (Nasdaq: SCUR); Surety, Inc.; SurfControl Plc (LSE:SRF); Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC); TechGuard Security, LLC; andVontu, Inc.


Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Enter your Email





Preview Powered by FeedBlitz