The latest Numbers You Need, our monthly bulletin of key economic and budget trends and data, reflects continued, if modest, progress on the job front and improved state revenue collections. Previously we reported decent growth in state personal income for the first quarter of 2010.  However, even as the Great Recession starts to recede,  the stubbornly dark cloud in the economic sky continues to be  foreclosures. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, May 18th, the Oklahoma City office of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City will be hosting a video cast featuring Dr. Eric Belsky, one of the country’s leading experts in housing and urban issues. Dr. Eric Belsky is Executive Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University and lecturer in urban design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He will share his views about current housing challenges, policies, innovative initiatives and the role of consumer and mortgage credit in stabilizing the housing sector.

The May 18th video cast will be from 1:00 to 3:00 pm at the Federal Reserve Bank’s Oklahoma City office, located at 226 Dean A. McGee Avenue.  The event is free and open to the public; however, attendees are asked to RSVPat their earliest convenience to Annette Phillips at annette.f.phillips@kc.frb.org or (405) 270-8486. Refreshments will be served.

Numbers You Need is a monthly publication from OK Policy that presents key data on the state’s economy, work force, human services, and budget in one concise easy-to-read fact sheet.

March’s edition of Numbers You Need provides further evidence of the deteriorating economic situation in Oklahoma. The state’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate hit 5.0 percent in January, up from 4.6 percent in December. Building permits issued in the final quarter of 2008 were down 44 percent compared to 2007, with the three month total representing the lowest level of activity since at least 1995. Meanwhile, state revenue collections in February fell steeply for the second straight month, coming in 21.6 percent below last year’s amount and 30.4 percent below the certified estimate.
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Yesterday’s New York Times had a sobering profile of the housing market in Cleveland, which has experienced the post-boom collapse earlier and more deeply than most of the rest of the nation. While the situation in Cleveland, as elsewhere, has many causes and more than enough blame to go around, the piece includes a telling passage about what happened when Cleveland tried to take action against the predatory lenders who took over the subprime lending market in the early 2000’s to make unaffordable loans to homeowners crammed full of high costs and fees. Read the rest of this entry »