Two Plus Two Equals Seven... Huh?
Rental rates in the D.C. region are the highest they've been in years, experts say. In fact, Bloomberg Businessweek recently ranked the District and parts of Northern Virginia as having the ninth-biggest rent hike in the country over the past year. Nearby Bethesda, Md. ranked 25th.
"It's a trend that's resulted from the recession," says Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University. "The rental market has been so hot in Washington because we did generate jobs during the downturn and we attracted young people who came as renters. Many of them don't qualify for purchase of houses, or they want to live in an urban area closer to downtown."
According to Bloomberg, rent prices in the No. 9 area have seen a 7.4 percent annual increase, with a 4.6 percent vacancy rate. Added to that, unemployment rates have remained low, hovering around 6 percent.
While the recession ravaged other locales nationwide, Washington actually saw stability and some job growth. Because of that, folks who'd lost their homes or jobs in other areas came to D.C., filling up the city's apartments and ultimately, tightening the market enough to enable landlords to hike the rents, Fuller says.
A couple of hours later at 7:47pm, WTOP posted this story from AP’s Hope Yen,
The ranks of the nation's poor have swelled to a record 46.2 million _ nearly 1 in 6 Americans _ as the prolonged pain of the recession leaves millions still struggling and out of work. And the number without health insurance has reached 49.9 million, the most in over two decades.
The figures are in a Census Bureau report, released Tuesday, that offers a somber snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for last year when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. The rate is still 9.1 percent at the start of an election year that's sure to focus on the economy and President Barack Obama's stewardship of it.
The overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent, from 14.3 percent the previous year, and the rate from 2007-2010 rose faster than for any similar period since the early 1980s when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment. For last year, the official poverty level was an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four.
Measured by total numbers, the 46 million now living in poverty are the most on record dating back to when the census began to track in 1959. The 15.1 percent tied the level of 1993 and was the highest since 1983.
Broken down by state, Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 22.7 percent, according to calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New Mexico and Arizona. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 6.6 percent.
Something isn’t adding up...2 + 2 = 4...doesn’t it?
In a matter of two hours, 39 minutes, WTOP posted stories that paint very different, if not opposite pictures of the nation’s capital. The first story speaks to DC’s prosperity, “stability and some job growth” and the second story speaks to the city as being among the states with the highest “share of poor people.” Huh? How does this happen?
When did 2 + 2 start equaling 7?
How does DC have growth in a recession AND have such high numbers of poor people?
Was there only “stability and job growth” for certain populations?
If DC’s unemployment have remained low, then are the poor people the working poor?
There is something terribly unjust, horribly unfair and blatantly unequal about this situation.
