HOUSINGNEWS REPORT
AMAZON AND THE BATTLE FOR TOMORROW’S COMMUNITIES
employment — the unemployment rate in October was just 4.1 percent. If one company won’t locate in town surely there’s another. At least that’s the theory. In practice low unemployment figures mask the reality that many communities are being left behind. Between 2000 to 2014 the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of 229 U.S. metropolitan areas, according to the Pew Research Center. “The widespread erosion of the middle class took place against the backdrop of a decrease in household incomes in most U.S. metropolitan areas,” says Pew. “Nationwide, the median income of U.S. households in 2014 stood at 8 percent
less than in 1999, a reminder that the economy has yet to fully recover from the effects of the Great Recession of 2007-09. The decline was pervasive, with median incomes falling in 190 of 229 metropolitan areas examined.” Translation: In 39 of 229 metro areas median incomes are rising. For the rest the recovery has a long way to go. National unemployment figures miss a deeply personal point for many workers. If your community loses 100 jobs and another community 500 miles away gains 150 jobs then national employment levels have increased but you don’t care. The bottom-line point is that your community lost 100 jobs. Property tax collections in your town are not going up, your town can no longer fund certain public services, and without
replacement jobs local home values will stall as demand declines.
Productivity Versus Wages Automation used to be seen as a challenge for factory workers, but now white-collar workers are also beginning to feel the pinch. Fortune says automation is becoming more common in such fields as law, medicine, and even sports reporting. PWC, the international consulting firm, says that automation could cut traditional U.S. jobs by as much as 38 percent by the 2030s. A study from Oxford goes further and estimates that “around 47 percent of total U.S. employment is in the high risk category” because of automation. Not only has automation eroded the job base, the financial benefits of technology have largely eluded the working class. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), “from 1973 to 2013, hourly compensation of a typical (production/nonsupervisory) worker rose just 9 percent while productivity increased 74 percent.” The result is that U.S. manufacturing is increasing but manufacturing jobs and incomes are not. We are sending more and more work to machines and software, a situation which will become increasingly common in the future. The Boston Consulting Group explains that “a human welder today earns around $25 per hour (including benefits), while the equivalent operating
HOME SELLER PROFITS BY METRO Q2 2017 AVERAGE HOME SELLER PCT RETURN SINCE PURCHASE
-10.3%
74.5%
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DECEMBER 2017 | ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS
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