Reg Murphy Pubs Archive

What’s in a Percentage Change?

Written by Don Mathews on October 4, 2023. Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

While dining with my wife and four friends recently at Reid’s Apothecary in downtown Brunswick, a question and insight came my way.

“Why is inflation measured as a percentage? Percentages are often deceiving.”

The question and insight are serious, as is the person who delivered them. The person – let’s call her “Jeannie,” to protect the names of the innocent – is a top-flight number-cruncher who can solve calculus problems in her head while juggling chainsaws.

She continued. “Take someone who was spending $100 a week on groceries. Soon, she’s paying $10 more for the same groceries. From $100 to $110 is a 10% increase.

“Soon, she’s paying another $10 more for the same groceries. From $110 to $120 is a 9.1% increase.

“To economists, the decrease in the percentage increase means inflation is falling. But to our grocery shopper, whose bill went up by $10, and then another $10, inflation isn’t falling. Are you going to tell her she’s wrong?”

Now, this is my kind of dinner conversation.

The idea of percentage change was prompted by this question: when the numerical value of something of interest – prices, blood pressure, bowling score, etc. – changes over a stretch of time, how can we gauge whether the change is large or small?

Consider. Suppose “Jeannie” wants to know how much real GDP – the inflation-adjusted value of U.S. production – changed from 2021 to 2022. She retrieves the figures: $21,408 billion in 2021 and $21,822 billion in 2022.

She immediately notices a paradox. The $414 billion increase in real GDP means the U.S. economy produced $414 billion more in goods and services in 2022 than it did in 2021. $414 billion is a lot of goods and services. But a change from $21,408 billion to $21,822 billion appears less impressive.

The second part of the paradox is what percentage change is about. A percentage change expresses the change from an initial value relative to the initial value itself. The calculation is: ((more recent value minus initial value) divided by initial value) times 100.

$414 billion is a big number, but it’s a modest 1.9% increase from $21,408 billion. (Note: the average annual growth rate of U.S. real GDP over the past 20 years is 2.1 percent.)

Percentage change has properties that can, indeed, make it deceptive. The same percentage change will mean a small numerical change if the initial value is small and a large numerical change if the initial value is large. The same numerical change will mean a large percentage change if the initial value is small and a small percentage change if the initial value is large.

The key: pay close attention to the initial value.

Now, to “Jeannie’s” question at Reid’s. Inflation is measured as a percentage change because it’s the clearest, most straightforward way to measure inflation. Inflation is a persistent increase in prices in general. Measuring prices in general requires constructing a price index, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Constructing the CPI is a complex process. See for yourself at bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/.

The process culminates in a new CPI. The most recent CPI, for August, is 306.269. The CPI for August 2022 is 295.320. The increase of 10.949 means prices in general were higher in August 2023 than they were in August 2022. That’s inflation.

We could leave it at that. But that would leave us with an unanswered question: how much inflation is that?

This much: (10.949 divided by 295.320) times 100 equals 3.7%.

That’s down from the June 2021 to June 2022 post-pandemic peak of 8.9%. The decrease in inflation means prices are still increasing, but not as much as they were.

Understanding is Required for Civil Discourse

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on September 27, 2023. Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

My new colleague, Dr. Drew Cagle, wrote his first From the Murphy Center column a few weeks ago. His charge to readers was to restore civility in politics. Anyone who has followed politics in our nation knows that civility has fallen out of favor. Many Americans root for a political party like their favorite sports team and treat the other party as a hated rival. Incivility is the new norm. Dr. Cagle suggested that we must proactively seek out a diverse range of opinions, remain open-minded, and find common ground.

I wholeheartedly endorse this call for civility, but partisan politics and siloed media don’t make it easy. If you only watch Fox News or CNN, it’s hard to understand the perspective of the other side. Similarly, our social networks tend to be composed of like-minded folks. Many people don’t engage regularly with those who hold dissimilar worldviews. Thus, it’s easy to stereotype or vilify a group that we do not understand.

Students in my Introduction to Sociology course are challenged to understand those dissimilar from themselves, a skill that can be applied to promote civility. Sociologists note that our ethical and social standards reflect our own cultural context. If we want to understand the behavior of “the other,” we need to understand their values, beliefs, and cultural practices. Understanding the reality of a group or the complexity of social phenomena should be prerequisites to judgment or action. This can be applied cross-culturally or to groups within our own communities, including to supporters of political parties.

There’s plenty of intolerance and closed-mindedness on both sides of the political aisle. Stereotyping “Trump supporters” or “the woke left” will not lead to civil discourse. Conservatives often fail to understand the perspectives of certain groups, including undocumented immigrants, transgender persons, and marginalized populations. Similarly, liberals often fail to understand the perspectives of those who voted for former President Trump, gun enthusiasts, and rural Americans. Folks on both sides of the aisle can benefit from understanding the beliefs and values of those aligned with the other political party. Understanding how others see the world and why our fellow Americans support particular policies can promote civil discourse.

Beyond promoting civility in politics, understanding those dissimilar from ourselves is necessary to address real-world social problems. Understanding why someone wants to own an AR-15 or why someone uses illegal drugs should be a prerequisite to developing relevant public policy.

Another of my Murphy Center colleagues, Dr. Heather Farley, wrote a column recently on combatting homelessness in the Golden Isles. Blanket stereotypes are often imposed on those who are homeless due to a lack of understanding; homeless persons are labeled as lazy, substance abusers, or mentally ill. The reality of homelessness in the U.S. is a lot more nuanced. Most homeless people are not choosing a lifestyle of homelessness. In fact, most who are homeless are experiencing homelessness temporarily, often as the result of an adverse life event. For many single moms, the precarious financial reality of balancing paid employment and childcare leads many mothers and their kids to end up homeless. I could go on. One should understand the lived reality of a group and the dynamics of a phenomenon before developing public policy. How can you fix something that you don’t understand?

Just as there are a multitude of reasons one might experience homelessness, there are a host of reasons why people make political decisions. Understanding leads to knowledge and empathy, which allow us to find common ground and develop useful public policy.

Understanding the cultural practices of those dissimilar from ourselves is a prerequisite to civil discourse in politics. Further, understanding the perspectives of those entangled in social problems is necessary to change behavior and mitigate public issues that plague our nation.

Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.

We are addicted to our opinions, and it shows.

Written by Melissa Trussell on September 6, 2023. Posted in Melissa Trussell, Reg Murphy.

Last week for this column, our new colleague Dr. Drew Cagle wrote about the dangers to democracy of today’s increasing incivility in politics. This brought to mind a relevant article I wrote during the height of election campaigning in 2018. I have updated that article for a re-run below:

Hanging in my office is a map of the world oriented such that the south pole is at the top and the north pole is at the bottom. At first glance, the map seems to be hanging upside down. But upon closer inspection, it is clear the country names, ocean labels, etc., are all legible and right-side up. The map was made to be displayed this way. And when you think about it, isn’t it funny that we think of it as upside down? The earth is a ball floating in space. From space, its top and bottom are completely arbitrary and are only a matter of perspective.

My favorite part of the map is the Anaïs Nin quote beneath it: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” There is no correct or true orientation of a map of the earth, but the map on my wall seems upside down because of the observer’s orientation.

In the summer of 2018, I attended a conference where I heard a presentation describing the economic theory of opinion formation. The presenter was Dr. Steven Albert of Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California. His paper essentially describes with symbols and equations what Anaïs Nin described in the words quoted above.

Albert builds on a decades old theory of human capital. An individual’s human capital is all her accumulated knowledge, skills, and experiences. In the 1970’s economists Stigler and Becker devised a theory of human capital that explains behavior they called “addiction.” Their model showed that the more human capital one accumulates in a specific area, say, music education, the lower the cost of continuing to add capital in that same area. In other words, the more you learn about playing an instrument, the easier—and more desirable— it is for you to become even better at that instrument. And, as you become better and better at music, you become less and less likely to change your hobby or career from music to sports. You would have to start all over accumulating sports human capital, when you already have a sort of momentum working for you in music. You are “addicted” to music.

Now, apply this theory to human opinions. Your opinion on a given topic is a function of time and what Dr. Albert calls your opinion human capital. Opinion human capital is all the possible opinions you could hold given your accrued knowledge about the subject. The more knowledge you accrue supporting your opinion on a particular issue, the easier and more desirable it becomes for you to continue to hold that opinion, even if you are later faced with contrary information. You are addicted to your opinion, and theory predicts that at some point, you will begin to avoid contrary information altogether.

With election season fast approaching and party debates heating up, I find it interesting that economic theory supports what we know about many of our friends and perhaps even ourselves. We choose to believe news or ads that support the opinions we already hold, and we avoid or quickly dismiss contrary information, regardless of how founded it might be.

We have to be intentional to break this cycle, following Dr. Cagle’s advice from last week’s column: “proactively seek out a diverse range of opinions, be open-minded, and choose to find common ground.” Otherwise, our opinions become more and more polarized, and civility becomes harder to achieve.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anaïs Nin

———–

Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.

Navigating Political Conflict: Restoring Civil Discourse

Written by Drew Cagle on August 30, 2023. Posted in Reg Murphy.

People don’t always see eye to eye. We might not agree on where to grab a meal, what to watch, or which team will clinch the championship. Sometimes, these differences can actually be beneficial. Initial disagreements can lead to healthy discussions that find some middle ground, especially in politics. In fact, many aspects of our government and its Constitution were shaped by compromises among the framers with differing ideas.

However, if you’ve been scrolling social media lately, you know that political disagreements in the United States have taken a turn for the worse. Gone are the days of constructive debate, replaced instead by name-calling, mudslinging, and political theatrics. This lack of civil conversation not only falls short of being helpful but is also incredibly frustrating for many Americans.

According to a recent survey conducted by Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service, a staggering 90% of voters express worry about the conduct of politicians. As if that number isn’t alarming enough, 83% believe that the primary objective of politicians should be finding common ground.

So, what’s happened to American Politics? A study from Stanford University discovered that incidents of incivility have increased by 23% over the past two decades.

Rewinding, disagreements are natural. They’re going to happen. When the Framers were crafting the U.S. Constitution, our blueprint for a free democratic nation, they overcame numerous disagreements to reach an eventual consensus. The Bill of Rights itself was born out of contentious yet civil and productive cooperation. The Framers were able to put aside their differences to reach a conclusion.

Fast-forwarding to the age of the internet, it’s evident that something has gone terribly wrong. Now that politicians can reach into our homes, pockets, and lives instantaneously, thanks to social media, the incentive for debate and cooperation seems to have faded. In fact, anyone can now engage in politics from behind a keyboard, perhaps anonymously, adding another layer of complexity. Likes, retweets, and popularity now seem to trump finding common ground. We have forgotten that democracy requires cooperation and respectful dialogue along with competing ideas.

The public seems remarkably self-aware of this. In a 2023 survey conducted by Baldwin Wallace University’s Community Research Institute, 87% of people blame news media and social media as the primary cause of increasing incivility.

The consequences of this shift in civil cooperation are numerous. The U.S. is supposed to be the “marketplace of ideas,” where we work together to do what’s best for everyone. However, when discourse becomes rude, individuals, particularly those not already strongly attracted to politics, are less likely to consider different viewpoints or participate in politics AT ALL. It may not be surprising, then, that incivility, combined with other factors like wealth and socioeconomic status, depresses voter turnout.

We have got to address incivility in politics. Democracy doesn’t work if everyone does not feel welcome to contribute ideas to public discussion. Of course, everyone isn’t going to agree on everything; it would be weird if they did. But, we can demand that political discussions remain civil from the top down. It starts with we the people. We must proactively seek out a diverse range of opinions, be open-minded, and choose to find common ground.

Restoring civility is not about giving up on our differences; It’s actually about using those differences constructively. Our greatest strength is our ability to work together, even when we believe different things. Our democracy and our country deserve our best.

We must disagree, but we must do so constructively and with kindness.

Combatting Homelessness in the Golden Isles

Written by Heather Farley on August 23, 2023. Posted in Heather Farley, Reg Murphy.

In early August, clergy from various faith denominations gathered at Brunswick City Hall to call on the City of Brunswick to halt a lawsuit against the homeless day shelter, The Well. The press conference brought to mind a series that my colleagues at the Murphy Center and I did in late 2021 around the causes and issues related to homelessness. Two years later, those issues remain complicated and grave.

During the press conference, Drew Thompson, pastor of Union City Church stated, “This community is expending precious energy on trying to rid our city of homeless people instead of learning ways to combat homelessness.”

Indeed, the lawsuit filed by the city cites public nuisance as its main basis. Given the challenges that business owners and residents have reported, largely around public safety concerns, it may not be a surprise to those who frequent downtown that the city is trying to do something in response. As Pastor Thompson suggests, the “something” they are trying is to use the court system to reduce the presence of homeless people around neighborhoods and local businesses rather than develop policies aimed at reducing the conditions of homelessness.

What would a shift in that policy approach look like if the city were to address the causes of homelessness instead? There are a few central areas where they might focus, but I want to highlight one, in particular. A common misconception is that homelessness is typically the result of personal failures, addiction, or mental illness. The root causes of homelessness, however, are deeply intertwined with economic disparities, inequalities among certain populations, and a severe shortage of affordable housing.

Housing is an area I see hope for policy redirection and an area the Mayor of Brunswick has publicly stated he wants to focus energy.

At the heart of this issue is a crisis of affordability. As Brunswick news reporter, Taylor Cooper wrote earlier this year, “the city of Brunswick has a “staggering” challenge when it comes to affordable housing… close to 85% of Brunswick’s total housing stock, 4,800 dwelling units, was built before 1970 and 20% of houses are ‘almost uninhabitable’.” Likewise, my Murphy Center colleague, Don Mathews, explained in a 2022 article (How Did Affordable Housing Become Unaffordable?) that “we’ve been digging the housing hole we’re in for decades. It’s deep.” That hole comes from a combination of minimum lot size restrictions, single-family-only zoning, a slow rate of new housing starts, and limited small home construction. In short, growing demand and sharply restricted supply have made affordable housing unaffordable.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, in Georgia a full-time worker would need to make $19.42/hour (working 40 hrs/wk and 52 weks/yr) to afford fair market rent for a two-bedroom rental home, a figure far beyond the reach of many low-income families. In the Brunswick metropolitan area, for instance, the median renter household income is $28,560 or approximately $14.88/hr. This leaves 44% (6749) of renter households in Brunswick with cost burdens (spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs) and 21.9% with severe cost burdens (spending more than 50% of their income on housing costs). With such high rates of cost burden, a single emergency or loss of work hours can lead to eviction and homelessness.

Addressing these root causes requires a concerted effort from policymakers, community organizations, and individuals. But homelessness is not an insurmountable problem.

Over the past decade, meaningful progress has been made in our community and our state to reduce homelessness. For instance, 60 new tiny homes are now ready for move-in at the Grove at Correll Commons. These fully furnished units are built and maintained by Hand in Hand of Glynn as permanent housing solutions for Glynn county’s unhoused citizens. The Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. has a goal to create or preserve 5,600 units of affordable and workforce housing by 2030. As of June of this year, they have achieved 3,177 affordable units through partnerships, affordable housing dashboards, and renters resources. Other methods of prevention have also been successful in the state. The Georgia Legal Services Program offers eviction prevention services outside of metro Atlanta and has served thousands of Georgians facing homelessness. Rapid rehousing programs have been largely successful in the state as well.

As for The Well, they are a piece of the puzzle required to secure the root cause of income insecurity by offering a way for those who are unhoused to eat, get laundry done, secure personal documents, and look for work and housing as a means of exiting homelessness. Closure is not the only solution to the concerns “downtowners” have expressed.

The problem is real. The city’s remedy may help but only in the short term, at best. If we really want to fix this problem, it will take collaboration between local government agencies, nonprofits, and the private sector that create solutions that address the needs of our homeless community.

Dr. Heather Farley is Chair of the Department of Business and Public Administration and Associate Professor of Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies and an environmental policy scholar. The opinions found in this article do not represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.

U.S. Economy Cruising Despite Interest Rate Hikes

Written by Don Mathews on August 16, 2023. Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

An extraordinary economic performance is going all but unnoticed. Consider the U.S. economy over the past 19 months.

In January 2022, the economy was behaving strangely.

The labor market recovery from the pandemic showed no signs of letting up. While workers continued to return to the labor force at a brisk clip, employment continued to grow at an even brisker clip. The unemployment rate was down to 4.0 percent.

Yet production was falling. Real GDP fell at an annualized rate of 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2022.

More problematic was inflation. In January 2021, inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, ran at a slow and easy 1.4 percent annual rate. By January 2022, it was running fast and hot at 7.6 percent.

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. In March, China imposed the most drastic of its pandemic lockdowns.

Something else happened in March 2022. The Federal Reserve started tightening.

As we all recall, the economy tanked in the initial months of the pandemic. The prospect of a pandemic-severe recession tandem prompted the Fed to move, with great urgency, to boost the economy. It did so the only way it can: it pumped money into the economy. It did so, aggressively and persistently, through the rest of 2020 and all of 2021. Other central banks around the world did much the same.

The aggressive monetary policy succeeded in preventing a severe recession. The price of that success was inflation. Inflation is ultimately a monetary phenomenon. Pump gobs of money into an economy month after month for twenty months is as surefire a recipe for inflation as there is.

The only way to reduce inflation is to do the opposite of what causes inflation. So, in March 2022, the Fed began attacking the inflation caused by its persistently aggressive expansionary policy with persistently aggressive contractionary policy.

Fed policy manifests itself in two obscure but key interest rates: the IORB (interest on reserve balances) rate and the fed funds rate. The Fed tightens by pushing the two rates up. The more it tightens, the higher they go.

Since March 16, 2022, the Fed has pushed the IORB rate up from 0.15 percent to 5.4 percent, and the fed funds rate range up from 0.0-0.25 percent to 5.25-5.5 percent. That is full-throttle contractionary policy.

And how has the U.S. economy performed since March 2022?

Since slipping by 0.6 percent (annualized) in the second quarter of 2022, real GDP has increased in each of the last four quarters. The increases have been solid, ranging from 2 percent to 3.2 percent.

Contributing to the real GDP growth of the last three quarters is a surge in private investment – meaning construction – in manufacturing, technology and green energy facilities.

The U.S. labor force has increased by 2.8 million, employment has increased by 2.9 million, and the unemployment rate has fallen from 3.6 percent to 3.5 percent.

Even more impressive – and more telling – are the labor force participation rates for people age 25 to 54 years. The participation rate for all 25 to 54-year-olds is now 83.5 percent, the highest level since May 2002. The participation rate for 25 to 54-year-old men is now 89.4 percent, the highest level since January 2020.

The labor force participation rate for 25 to 54-year-old women exceeded 77 percent for the first time ever this past February. It has remained above 77 percent every month since.

Inflation, which peaked at 8.9 percent in June 2022, is now 3.3 percent.

Such a stellar performance in the teeth of such tight monetary policy is extraordinary.

Overcoming Learning Loss in the New School Year

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on August 9, 2023. Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

The new school year has welcomed Glynn County teachers and students with a daunting challenge: reversing the alarming trend in falling reading and math scores.

The National Center for Education Statistics regularly administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress Long-Term Trend Assessment to assess reading and math skills among 13-year-old students in the U.S. On a scale of 500 points, the average reading score in 2022 was 4 points lower than the average reading score in 2020. The average math score in 2022 was 9 points lower than the average math score in 2020. These are the lowest scores since the 1970s. Scores have been declining for a decade, but performance plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning losses were even more pronounced for low performing students, girls, and certain racial groups.

Both high performing and low performing students saw test score declines, but low performing students saw more extreme declines in their reading and math scores. Declines in math were especially precipitous for low performing students. Declines ranged from 6 to 8 points for middle to high performing students. Low performing students saw declines from 12 to 14 points.

The math results showed a widening gap between boys and girls. Scores in 2022 were lower for boys and girls relative to 2020 scores, but math scores decreased by 11 points for girls compared to 7 points for boys.

All racial groups saw declining scores in reading and math, but learning loss was much more substantial in math. Math scores dropped by the following amounts for students from various racial groups between 2020 and 2022: White (-6 points), two or more races (-8 points), Asian (-9 points), Hispanic (-10 points), Black (-13 points), and American Indian/Alaska Native (-20 points).

Further, math scores showed a widening gap across races. Scores among Black students declined by 13 points compared to a 6 point decline among White students. The 35 point gap between Black and White students in 2020 has widened to 42 points in 2022.

Declining scores and widening achievement gaps reflect learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic. In some cases, schools were shuttered for more than a year. Many students experienced long periods of ineffective virtual instruction. However, the blame cannot be placed solely on the COVID-19 pandemic. Scores were declining for a decade before lockdowns and mass virtual instruction. Learning loss during COVID-19 exacerbated declines in achievement that were underway before the pandemic.

Many students are behind academically, but this challenge is compounded by behavioral issues in the classroom, teacher burnout, and difficulty attracting and retaining qualified teachers.

Across our nation, lawmakers are passing legislation that establishes or expands school choice programs. Many of these programs allow parents to use public dollars to cover educational expenses. These programs tend to allow well-to-do children to escape struggling schools, while children from families of limited means are stuck in schools with even fewer resources.

We must address learning loss and close the growing academic achievement gaps among our youth through evidence-based interventions and accelerated learning opportunities for students. Schools can better serve students by providing smaller class sizes, programming and opportunities for at-risk populations, high frequency tutoring, behavioral and mental health support, before and after school programming, and summer enrichment programs. These efforts should be paired with parental outreach efforts and nurturing partnerships with child-centered non-profit organizations.

Any plan to address learning loss must also address mental health and behavioral challenges among students, mitigate teacher burnout, and attract and retain qualified teachers. Of course, significant disparities in funding shape what strategies any given school district may implement.

Our kids and our nation will suffer if we don’t act. Learning loss is correlated with lower levels of educational attainment and lower lifetime earnings. Falling behind academically restricts young people’s ability to enter skilled professions and may reduce the GDP for decades to come.

Extreme heat has local medical and economic consequences

Written by Melissa Trussell on July 26, 2023. Posted in Melissa Trussell, Reg Murphy.

It’s hot. Last week as I was writing this article, The Washington Post reported that record temperatures and high humidity were creating a “heat dome” over the South and feels-like temperatures above 100°F could be expected to linger. In fact, on July 17, it was reported that the Earth’s average temperature broke records every day for the previous two weeks.

According to the weather station in my backyard in Sterling, there has only been one day in all of July that the high temperature was below 90 (It was 88.7 on July 10), and the average daily humidity has been in the upper 70’s to 90’s with daily high humidity above 91%. Again, it’s hot. Dangerously hot.

On average, 702 heat-related deaths occur each year in the U.S. Over 67,500 ER visits per year are for heat-related emergencies, and the US has an annual average of 9,235 heat-related hospitalizations.

For the first week of July 2023, the CDC reports 401 out of every 100,000 ER visits in the Southeast were for heat-related illnesses.

The CDC’s Heat & Health Tracker forecasts 9 days of extreme heat for July in Glynn County, where extreme heat is defined as a high temperature above 95% of historical temperatures for that day. The Center further predicts that residents of Glynn are especially likely to experience adverse health outcomes due to the heat.

The Social Vulnerability Index (CVI) is a measure of how vulnerable communities are to public health emergencies like extreme heat. Glynn County as a whole ranks moderate to high by this index. Census tracts in and near downtown Brunswick have CVI’s as high as 0.985 on a scale of 0 to 1. Between April 1 and July 21 of this year, Southeast Georgia Health System’s Brunswick and Camden campuses saw 47 heat-related cases in their emergency room or other observation and had 5 patients admitted for heat exhaustion.

The economic impacts of our vulnerability to extreme heat are great.

The people most likely to need medical care for heat-related illness are also least likely to have insurance or to be able to pay for medical care: the very young, the very old, those with disabilities or pre-existing illnesses, and households who struggle to pay for air conditioning or those without air conditioning altogether.

And, perhaps the most vulnerable among us are those who do not have houses to duck into for protection from the heat. Anyone who reads this paper regularly knows Brunswick has a significant population of houseless persons. We often think of them during the cold months when we are encouraged to donate blankets, jackets, socks, and gloves to organizations serving them. But, extreme heat can be just as perilous for unhoused individuals and possibly more so because these individuals tend to live in localities like Brunswick, where we experience more days of extreme heat than extreme cold.

Besides the healthcare costs, heat-related injury puts a strain on the greater economy through decreases in productivity. Regardless of one’s conditions at home, those who work in the heat (e.g. construction, lawn maintenance, etc.) are at increased risk. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2020, among U.S. occupational injuries or illnesses resulting in days away from work, 1,940 were due to exposure to environmental heat versus only 190 from exposure to environmental cold.

We would do well to implement strategies for prevention— free cold water, public cooling centers, amended work hours for workers who must be outside to avoid the heat of the day, public support for homeless shelters.

Meanwhile, if you can, stay inside, drink plenty of water, and maybe give away a bottle or two to someone else who needs it.

U.S. Gun Deaths Reach an All-Time High

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on July 12, 2023. Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

Gun deaths in the United States have reached an all-time high for a second year in a row. 48,830 Americans died from a firearm injury in 2021, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These firearm deaths include 26,328 suicides, 20,958 homicides, 549 unintentional gun deaths, 537 legal intervention deaths, and 458 firearm deaths with an undetermined intent. That’s one death every eleven minutes from gun violence in the U.S.

Gun violence in the U.S. is an ongoing public health crisis. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unprecedented spike in gun deaths that was largely driven by an increase in homicides. Though most Americans returned to their daily routines, gun deaths continued to increase in 2021.

Gun violence disproportionately impacts men. 85.7% of firearm deaths in 2021 involved a male victim. However, there were significant differences in homicide and suicide rates across various racial and age groups.

In 2021, the U.S. experienced the highest gun homicide rate since 1994. The gun homicide rate in 2021 was up 7.6% from 2020, but there has been a 45% increase between 2019 and 2021. Between 2019 and 2021, gun homicide rates increased 49% for Blacks and 55% among Native Americans. Young Black males were disproportionately the victims of homicides involving a firearm. Black teens and young men accounted for 2% of the total population, but accounted for 36% of all gun homicide fatalities in 2021.

Homicides get a lot of media attention, but suicides make up the bulk of gun deaths in the U.S. Suicides involving a firearm were up 8.3% from 2020. That’s the largest one-year increase in four decades. This was also the highest number of gun suicide deaths ever recorded since the C.D.C. started tracking such data in 1968. White men were overrepresented among gun suicide deaths in 2021. Despite making up only 30% of the U.S. population, white men accounted for 70% of gun suicide deaths. White men over age 65 had a gun suicide rate that was four times the national average.

Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. Since 2020, injuries from firearms have topped accidents and cancer as the leading cause of death for our youth. About two-thirds of gun deaths for children and teens are homicides.

How are things going in Georgia compared to other states? Georgia had an above-average gun homicide rate, the 11^th highest in the nation in 2021. Conversely, Georgia has the 25^th highest gun suicide rate in the nation, just above the national average in 2021.

Gun sales have doubled in the U.S. over the past decade, surging in 2020. Firearms are often marketed as a way to protect oneself from threats. Conversely, gun ownership greatly increases one’s risk of dying by suicide or homicide, according to a meta-analysis of existing peer-reviewed research on the topic that was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The availability of firearms in our nation is a central reason why the U.S. has a higher rate of gun deaths than other developed nations.

The Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Violence Solutions proposes a range of evidence-based, equitable policy recommendations to reduce gun deaths, including: legislation that enacts permit-to-purchase laws; red flag laws permitting removal of firearms from high-risk individuals; child access prevention laws to reduce gun accidents involving children; laws that restrict open carry in public places; laws placing restrictions on concealed carry for those with criminal records; laws banning concealed carry of firearms at specified, sensitive places; repealing stand your ground laws; and investing in community violence intervention programs.

Increasing rates of firearm ownership, high levels of gun sales, and a political climate that is unreceptive to restrictions on firearms all but ensure that deaths from firearms will remain a significant public health crisis for years to come.

Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is interim chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.

Our Capitalist Heritage

Written by Don Mathews on July 5, 2023. Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the great political rhetorician and British statesman, understood the civilization that British colonial America had become.

In 1769, three years into what would be a 28-year stint as a member of the House of Commons, Burke published a pamphlet in which he noted: “The pride and strength of the Americans is their trade. A perfectly unimpeded commerce seems to them inseparable from liberty.”

Six years later, Burke attempted to persuade his fellow MPs to do whatever was necessary to placate the American colonists and avoid war. His unsuccessful but now famous “Speech on Conciliation with America,” delivered on March 22, 1775, contained this:

“America – which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with savage men and uncouth manners; yet shall before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to …in a series of Seventeen Hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life.”

Burke recognized that a zeal for enterprise and commerce was fundamental to who colonial Americans were and what their America was about.

It may seem surprising that what an Irish-born British statesman identified as fundamental to British colonial America is just as fundamental to the United States today. Surprising, that is, until we recall that by July 4, 1776, the market-based American economy had been growing, developing and spreading for 169 years.

British colonial America was capitalist from the get-go. It did not develop according to a plan. It developed according to the profit motive.

The idea of establishing colonies in America came not from the British crown or the British Parliament, but from profit-seeking British entrepreneurs and investors. Joint-stock companies established the first and the bulk of the British colonies in America.

A joint-stock company was a form of business partnership. It required a royal charter, but the partners financed the venture and assumed all risk.

Jamestown was a business venture of the Virginia Company of London. Plymouth, of Pilgrim fame, was a venture launched by a group of 70 investors led by Thomas Weston. Massachusetts Bay was launched by the Massachusetts Bay Company.

Colonists were wired into producing for the market from the outset. Profits to the joint stock companies, and to the colonists themselves, came from the sale of commodities produced by the colonists to buyers in Britain and elsewhere. Which commodities would be most profitable was left to the colonists – and the market – to determine.

British commercial law was employed immediately, though with some modifications. Land tenure law was a crucial modification. The British Crown allowed only one type of land tenure in colonial America: free and common socage. Meaning: land purchased from the Crown is owned free and clear.

Colonial Americans made enterprising use of the arrangement. They scattered and settled wherever they found productive land. They also bought and sold land as a speculative investment. Land speculation was a leading industry in the colonies almost from their beginning.

The growth and development of British colonial America had an ironic consequence. The joint stock companies established colonies in America to produce commodities for export. Yet, in short order, most colonists found the domestic market more lucrative than the export market. Economic historians estimate that, in the 169 years from Jamestown to 1776, less than five percent of colonial American output was exported.

The British colonial America that Edmund Burke wrote and spoke of was a well-established capitalist civilization. On July 4, 1776, that well-established capitalist civilization became a country.

Archives: Reg Murphy Pubs