trendSCAN October 2008

October 2008

In This Version:

Quick Economic Update
September Unemployment Figures
The Working Poor
Changes in Housing Costs and Patterns
Kids Today: Over-scheduled or Doing Great?
Connected Families

Possibilities for Parks and Recreation in Economic Downturn

The heat is on as pressures for cost-cutting, reduced taxes, layoffs, etc. move to the forefront of everybody's minds – certainly park and recreation professionals. While trends such as this serious economic downturn are no fun, they do hold possibilities for changes – small in scope or larger in direction. Remember tough times are a perfect reason for making changes that would have been unthinkable and non-starters just a short time ago.

Consider if you will, one or more of the following:

Take a real, real close look at your programs and services and determine those areas that have clearly outlived their usefulness (except for a few diehard participants) OR don't really fit with the philosophy and mission of public parks and recreation and were somehow just added along the way. Once you find them make plans to transition them so that small group of diehards or no longer mission-driven alternatives can operate on their own. Think facilitate rather than continued direct service provider.
Be counter-intuitive. Do just the opposite of what seems logical. If people are cutting back on expenditures in your programs and services, don't raise prices, but rather cut them. If sponsors have withdrawn from larger special events, make major changes in the big time expenses such as entertainment or number of days of the event, but manage to maintain the essence of the celebration, i.e. people getting together to interact, relax, etc.
Rethink your role. Take a close-up look at those contract classes and other direct services being offered and ask yourself just how many people and how much revenue is being generated in this manner. As an alternative hold a “friends and families” game night where you teach all comers how to play simple card and board games as a way for making the most of their leisure time “on their own”. Ask for donations from those in attendance.

This is just an off-the-top-of-head “getting started” list. Please email me at Ellenosull@aol.com to share your Ideas for Tough Times and the ideas gathered from the readership will appear in next month's trendSCAN.

September Unemployment Figures

Not that we don't already know and feel it, here are some economic updates related to unemployment.

Reporting September 2008 data (the latest available), the Labor Department indicated unemployment rates increased in 47 states with more that 9.4 million people actively looking for work
The September nationwide unemployment rate was 6/1%
The rate for California is 7.7% which means that more than 1.4 million residents are looking for work
For California , the percentage increase in unemployment from September 2007 to 2008 is 38.7%.

(Source: USA Today, 10/22/08)

The Working Poor: 42 million

The latest data on working families is in and the news is not great as 1 out of every 4 working families with children are low income that represents 42 million people. The Working Poor Families Project, an initiative supported by several national foundations including the Annie E. Casey, Ford, Joyce, and C.S. Mott Foundations, launched in 2002 with its first report, “Working Hard, Falling Short: America's Working Families and the Pursuit of Economic Security.

The follow-up report conducted in 2006 with findings that have just been released finds that the situation hasn't improved and has in fact become worse. The following reflects facts about these families…

the number of low-income working families with children has increased by more than 350,000; this increase is disturbing because the data was gathered during a time of solid national economic growth.
pay a higher percentage of their income for housing than those earning more,
they are far less likely to have health insurance,
they often lack the education and skills required to succeed in today's skills-driven economy.
worked 2,552 hours per year, as measured in 2006, the equivalent of almost one and a quarter full-time workers per family.

Other information intended to dispel misunderstandings about low income working families included the following:

72% of low-income families work.
52% of low-income working families are headed by married couples
69% of low-income working families have only American-born parents
89% of low-income working families have a parent between ages 25 and 54.
69% of low-income working families have only American-born parents
43% of low-income working families have white, non-Hispanic parents.
25% of low-income working families receive food stamp assistance.

This report also included more specific data for each of the 50 states. Some additional information related to California includes:

California has more than a million low-income working families
In seven states, more than one-third of low-income working families have a parent without a high school degree. The rate for California is 50%.

(Source: http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/nat_report/nat_report7.html )

Changes in Housing Costs and Patterns

More Households Struggle with Housing Costs

According to an analysis of Census data undertaken for USA Today by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University , the following findings were released:

Last year, 38% of homeowners with mortgages spent 30% or more of their before-tax income on housing
15% of homeowners without mortgages and half of all renters had trouble meeting housing costs
Nearly six out of 10 homeowners with mortgages in the 100 Metro areas are spending 30% or more of their income on housing.
Stockton, Calif.; Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.; Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.; and Los Angeles-Long Beach rank in the top five for this patterns
Nearly 75% of homeowners with household incomes under $50,000 have trouble paying their mortgages, this is true for 23% of those who made more than $50,000.

Please Note: The government establishes a threshold as unaffordable if households spend 30% or more of their before-tax income on housing.

(Source: USA Today, September 2008)

Parents and Adult Children Living Together

Sure parents came for dinner and quick visits, but now parents are moving in with adults children. This trend has been growing gradually but consistently as the ever-increasing and higher costs of housing lead to the sharing of expenses.

According to the Census Bureau:

The number of parents, siblings and other relatives who live with adult heads of households grew 42% from 2000 to 2007
Parents lead the way demonstrating a 67% increase during this time period
This trend does not relate to just elderly parents. The proportion of parents under the age of 65 moving into households increased by 75% compared with those 65 and over at 62%

(Source: USA Today, October 2008)

Kids Today: Over-scheduled or Doing Great?

The discussion and conversation about today's children and whether or not they are over-scheduled and over-programmed continues with a new twist. While the Academy of Pediatrics expressed concerns about the current patterns of participation of children especially citing lack of adequate amounts of sleep, new studies are suggesting differently.

Several studies compared in a September 2008 article in the Washington Post brought renewed attention and interest to this topic.

Study: "The Hurried Child: Myth vs. Reality,"

One such study, "The Hurried Child: Myth vs. Reality," conducted by Hofferth from the University of Maryland studied children ages 9 to 12, “primes ages” for being heavily involved in organized and activities. Findings from this study included:

those children who Hofferth described as being “the best off” were the 58% who had a more balanced approach to organized activity participating in 1 or 2 activities for less than four hours
the 25% identified by the study as being “highly involved” did almost as well as the “balanced” group
the greatest concern is the 17% of children who no activities who appear to be more withdrawn, less socially mature with lower self-esteem

Earlier Study at Yale University

An earlier study conducted in a similar manner as the previous one was conducted by Mahoney at Yale University . The findings from this study included:

3 percent of children and 6 percent of adolescents were highly involved, with 20 or more hours of activities a week.
Most children with activities did them fewer than 10 hours a week.
Forty percent of children had no activities at all.

Common Conclusions

Two studies showed that only a minority are heavily scheduled and that organized activities are linked to positive outcomes in school, emotional development, family life and behavior. The children most at risk have no activities at all, the studies showed.

(Source : http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-092808-children-schedule,0,2831001.story

Connected Families

While we've long known that families don't connect while sitting around the dinner table every night and that the family TV time has given way to everyone in front of their own screen, there is recently released information that highlight a different version of connected families

Pew Internet & American Life Project: The Pew Internet Project, an initiative of the Pew Research Center , a nonprofit "fact tank" providing information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping our world shares with us yet another study. This time it focuses upon the networked families.

Some of the findings from this report released this month, October 2008, include the following:

the internet and cell phones have become central components of modern
family life
the traditional nuclear family has the highest rate of technology usage and ownership among all household groups
these high rates of technology usage, particularly cell phones, enable family members to stay in touch

A summary of these findings include the following generalizations about today's networked families:

technology permeates today's households and becomes a central feature of family life
technology empowers new forms of family connectedness particularly cell phone interactions and communal internet experience
busy, tech-using families are less likely to share meals and less like to report satisfaction with their leisure time
cell phones equal extra contact and coordination of daily life activities especially for couples
the internet provides shared “Hey look at this” experiences
the majority of adults believe that technology enables their families to be as close or closer than their own family experiences as children
while people like the ways technology allows them to stay connected with their families, they do admit it blurs the more traditional spaces of home and work
people are beginning to spend less time watching TV due to the internet
as people spend more time working, they become less satisfied with the amount of time they have for hobbies or relaxing

(Source: Networked Families . Washington , DC : Pew Internet & American Life Project, October 19, 2008)

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© California Park & Recreation Society, 2008. trendSCAN is created for CPRS by Leisure Lifestyle Consulting of Sarasota, FL. Comments and questions can be directed to Dr. Ellen O’Sullivan at leisurlife@aol.com. Please feel free to share interesting trend information with her as well.