February 25, 2008
Outgoing Families
Based on various trends, including taxpayer migration to and from Rhode Island, I've suggested a theory that working and middle class families have been selling their homes and leaving the state. While I wouldn't claim the following real estate data as absolute proof, it certainly does fit the scenario:
Across the board, homebuyers in Rhode Island last year were less likely to be married and have children living at home, compared to the national average, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors.The difference was most pointed in the group of first-time buyers — only 41 percent of this Rhode Island group was married, compared to 51 percent in the United States. Among all homebuyers, 55 percent were married in Rhode Island, versus 62 percent nationwide.
Rhode Island may be on the leading edge of a trend: the number of married-couple buyers has declined nationwide in the past 12 years, from 70 percent of the buyer pool in 1995 to 62 percent last year. However, home sellers in Rhode Island were more likely to be married (77 percent) than the national average (75 percent).
People with families to raise are, I suspect, more sensitive to political and economic deterioration, and they are probably less likely to want to tough it out, rather than avoid it altogether.
I see it around me. Of the homes immediately surrounding my house, less than one-half belong to residents (most are now second homes bought by NY / CT people), and none occupied by married couples with school age children.
If I were a young married couple facing:
Lousy public schools operated as ATM's for the NEA rather than as institutions of education;
The prospect of continued economic decline here (the Northeast is shrinking, and RI worse than average for the NE) - with no real prospect for improvement due to businesses (employers) being repelled from this State due to:
a) Political corruption (with no end in sight);
b) Punitive taxation (with no end in sight);
c) Union dominance of the public sector (precipitating the tax burden);
d) Union / 1930's class warfare mindset of the ruling Democratic Party, with its hostility to employers and to middle-class people pursuing the American Dream (i.e., if you work hard for years and against the odds in RI become successful, we'll reward your work by taxing the sh** out of you 'cause you're "rich");
e) Struggling to put your kids through college, only to have them leave upon graduation because they can't find suitable employment here - further exacerbating a "brain drain" in a State whose Democrat economic policy is to export college graduates and import welfare recipients.
For such couples, the only economically rational decision is, if possible, to leave RI and don't look back.
I wish I had when I was younger - my friends from high school and college who left here in the 1970's (due to the above factors, which have only become worse over the years) are enjoying much better economic circumstances and lifestyles - better economy; lower taxes; lower cost of living in general; better weather.
Rhode Island could be an economic mecca - but the union / welfare / Democrat axis continues to render it an economic and ethical black hole.
Posted by: Tom W at February 25, 2008 11:00 AM