Chicago Fed Letter
Persistently Pessimistic: Consumer and Small Business Sentiment After the Covid Recession
Jacob S. Herbstman and Scott A. Brave
Both consumer and small business sentiment indexes remain very pessimistic by historical standards. In this article, we take a closer look at possible explanations. Our analysis suggests that after the Covid-19 recession in the United States, the responses of consumers and small business owners to sentiment-related surveys have become less sensitive to labor market conditions.
Land Value Taxes—What They Are and Where They Come From
Elizabeth Kepner and Rick Mattoon
Changes to property tax structures, including the introduction of split-rate taxation, have been seeing increased interest from policymakers. Split-rate property taxation is rooted in the concept of land value taxation, which is an alternative to the form of property taxation used in most U.S. communities. In this Chicago Fed Letter, we explain what these alternatives to traditional property taxation are and provide some history on their implementation in the U.S.
Neighborhoods with Public Housing: Tracking Their Residents’ Financial Health and Visiting Patterns
Dawn Chinagorom-Abiakalam, Cameron Deal, Elainia Gupta, Daniel Hartley, Bhashkar Mazumder, and Ryan Perry
Over 1 million households live in public housing developments in the United States. Research on the effects of public housing—on both its residents and residents in the surrounding neighborhood—is decidedly mixed when it comes to various outcomes, such as educational attainment, labor market success, rates of crime, and economic opportunity. Using multiple data sources, we describe two important, but understudied, aspects of those living in neighborhoods with public housing: these residents’ financial health and the demographic and income characteristics of the neighborhoods they visit as reflected by their day-to-day movements outside their home areas.
What Is Driving the Differences in Inflation Within the Midwest?
Elainia Gupta and Leslie McGranahan
In this article, we explore differences in inflation dynamics across cities (and other areas) within the Midwest. We look independently at the impact of consumption patterns and price changes by expenditure categories, and find that the recent gaps in inflation across midwestern cities have existed largely because of disparities in price changes for housing and transportation, as well as differences in the consumption patterns (as captured by expenditure weights) for transportation and housing.
