According to the American Community Survey Briefs produced in 2009 the use of Public Transportation is going down in the US. More than 300,000 people found alternative means of transportation to commute to both work and school as opposed to public transportation data than in the year before. The majority of public transportation use was in large metropolitan cities, for instance New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia area, Public transportation use for commuting to both work and school was as high as 30%, as opposed to the nation average of 5%. Although the nation has not changed public transportation infrastructure dramatically in recent years less than 5 of the nation's 366 major metropolitan areas exceeded greater than 10% public transportation use for work. The three metropolitan areas that used the highest level of public transportation as their primary means to commute to work and school, over the age of 16 and not working at home, are New York, New Jersey, Long Island area followed by the Chicago, Mandeville, Gillette area and finally the Washington DC, Arlington, Alexandria area. Each of these major metropolitan areas has a population of over one million. Although there was little change in statistical data from 2008 to 2009, we can still see that as more people move to major metropolitan areas public transportation use rises. This small change in the statistical data from 2008 to 2009 is expected as the overall US population rises and our nation continues to grow.
Nationwide nearly 2 out of every 5 renters is considered burdened by housing cost, meaning that housing cost, as defined by the total average of utilities and rent combined, consumes more than 35 percent of their income. We come to this data on the Rental Housing Market Condition by sifting through the nation average which currently estimates that 34.13% of the total population is renting, and of that percentage 42.48% are considered burdened. The numbers from the nation's 50 most densely populated metropolitan demonstrate that there is a broad range of housing factors that affect each area's housing market and cannot be determined as a whole or singled down to a single societal factor. Of those top 50 metropolises, the one with the lowest percentage of renters was Minneapolis, St Paul, Bloomington area with just 25.57% of the population currently renting with 41.27% of those people considered burdened, leaving them with a 5.91% rental vacancy rate. The area with highest percentage of people renting was the Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana area with 49.27% of the population currently renting and a whopping 47.27% of those people are considered burdened leaving the city of angels with a 5.29% rental vacancy rate. From this data we can theorize that the rental market is getting more competitive as more people opt to rent rather buy their home. There is a direct relationship to the tighter housing regulations and recent failures of some of the nation's top mortgage banks. Luckily, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has tasked the Obama Administration with developing a proposal for housing reform later this year which will including restructuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It's expected that a cornerstone of this policy proposal will the ongoing promotion of rental housing. Although this is only a proposal it is a step towards change as America moves on into the next century.
Property Values continue to change as our economy attempts to recover. The property value as defined for this paper is what the current owner thinks the property would sell for if sold on the market today. All figures presented have been adjusted for inflation to the 2009 dollar value. As a national average, property values have dropped 5.8% over the last year but that's not to say that property values have dropped everywhere. Although the worst effected area's property values fell 34% in Mercad, CA some metropolitan area's values rose as high as 19.7% in the Hattiesburg, MS area. Of the 50 most populous metro area's with a decrease of at least 9% median property value, one out of every five was located in either California (6) or Florida (4), suggesting that beach front properties were the hardest hit. It is also noted that there is a vast difference in Median property values, regardless of change in perceived value, across the US. For instance, in the San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara area, the median property value is estimated to be $719,700 while the lowest median property value, of the top 50 again, was the Buffalo, Niagara Falls area with a median property value of just $116,000.
Through all of this we can assume a direct correlation between the economic situation and the percentage of people receiving Public Assistance in the Past 12 Months. Over 350,000 more people were approved for public assistance under Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) than the year before. These benefits do not include things like social security, food stamps and Medicaid. According to the 2009 data, the assistance participation rate was 2.6%, as defined by at least one person in the household received public assistance in the past twelve months. Fourteen states had participation rates even higher than the national average, while twenty one states had lower rates. Ten of the states with lower participation rates than the national average are located in the south and include Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Maryland, Virginia and Arkansas. Twenty states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia had an increase in the participation rate. The remaining states rate did not show a significant change from the year before. The state that had the highest increase was Ohio, with nearly 31,700 new recipients' from than the year before. Alaska had the smallest increase in participation rate with just 91 new recipients' in 2009. Rhode Island on the other hand actually had a decrease in rate with 1,722 less recipients'. All of this data is collected at the 90% confidence level so you can be rest assured it's comparably accurate to our best efforts.
For more information or to see the numbers yourself, please visit http://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_documentation/acs_briefs/.
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