A downtrodden economy eliminating hopes of heading out of the homestead has yielded a startling statistic from just released figures from the US Census Bureau. As of 2010, Americans are moving into new homes at the lowest figure since World War II.
According to the latest numbers courtesy of the Census Bureau, only 11.6 percent of the US population — roughly 35.1 million people — moved into new homes during the year 2010. While the migration might seem substantial out of context, the rate is actually at a low that spans more than six decades of government tracking.
Economists speaking to The Associated Press say that a collapsing housing market, crumbling economy and young Americans engrossed in huge debt is largely responsible for the stagnant statistics, which is at the smallest figure since the Census Bureau began tracking real estate transactions such as this in 1948.
The report adds that in suburban and rural communities, nearly 94 percent of homeowners stayed in their residence from 2009 last year, an increase from figures relating to the 2005-2007 statistics, says University of New Hampshire demographer Kenneth Johnson.
While the latest figures are at its lowest in the history of the Census Bureau’s tracking, it does not come as a particular surprise to demographers that have been following trends all along. Moving rates have been on the decline for decades now; only in 2012, however, did numbers hit such a sad slump. One expert, Richard Florida from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, tells the AP today that the news is “devastating.”
“The latest decline shows we are in a long-run economic reset and that we never really recovered — we’ve just been stagnating along,” Florida adds.
Earlier this week, the New York-based research group The Conference Board revealed that consumer confidence among the American public for the month of October sunk below experts’ expectations to a figure the country has not seen since the last recession. Responding to those numbers, economist Yelena Shulyatyeva of BNP Paribas told Bloomberg, “Our best-case scenario is we’ll muddle through,” but added that outlook suggests that confidence will continue to deteriorate.
The New York Times also reported in October that the median income among Americans has actually dropped since the recession.