Severe Drought Causes Famine In Eastern Africa

A recent article in The Economist discusses the widespread famine currently plaguing Eastern Africa as a result of severe drought in the region. The famine is concentrated in Somalia and Ethiopia, as shown in the map of the region included in the article (right), which shows the percent below normal precipitation levels of the region. The area being hit hardest, with precipitation less than 50% of its normal levels, is southern Somalia. According to surveys conducted by Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) across southern Somalia this month, malnutrition exceeds 38% in most areas. The article discusses the UN's response to the famine at the beginning of this month, suggesting it was slightly delayed considering the famine was predicted as early as November, and refers to the response of donors as "patchy." Some of the donors' hesitancy can be attributed to the Shabab, an Islamist militia in Somalia that controls much of the southern region and has banned Western aid, which it has labeled anti-Muslim. Donors may be concerned about violence against Western aid workers that has occurred in the past in the region and that food aid could be used to support the militia.


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Hispanics Hit Hardest By Recession

According to a study published last week by Pew Research Center, Hispanic families experienced the greatest decline in net worth of all ethnic and racial groups in the US during the recession. The study used US Census data and found that the median wealth of Hispanic households decreased 66% from 2005 to 2009. This and the percent change in median household net worth of other racial and ethnic groups can be seen in the chart (right) that was included in a recent New York Times article discussing the results of the study. As the chart indicates, the Asian population experienced the second largest decrease in net worth at a 54% decrease between 2005 and 2009, while the Black population also experienced a large decrease in net worth at 53%. Whites fared comparatively well to all other races and ethnicities, only experiencing a decrease of 16%. Consequently, the US is currently experiencing the greatest wealth disparities in the 25 years the Census Bureau has been recording data of this nature, with the median wealth of white households now 20 times that of Black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households. The author of the article, Sabrina Tavernise, speculates that Hispanics were particularly vulnerable economically during the recession because nearly two-thirds of their net worth in 2005 was from home equity, which declined sharply with the collapse of the housing market. Whites, on the other hand, had a greater portion of their wealth in other assets, such as stocks. Ms. Tavernise also points out that Hispanics may have been more vulnerable due to the large Hispanic populations in places like Florida and California, which were hit particularly hard by the recession.  

Business Leaders Still Predominantly Male

A recent article in The Economist discusses legislation that is being passed, mainly in Europe, that promotes greater female representation in board rooms and executive committees. European countries that have passed such legislation include Norway, which passed a law in 2003 that required all publicly listed firms to reserve 40% of seats on their boards for women by 2008, and France and Spain, which have both passed similar legislation. Earlier this month, the European Parliament passed an EU-wide resolution that called upon member states to require that at least 40% of seats on listed companies' supervisory boards be reserved for women by 2020. This legislation is in response to a lack of female chief-executives in large companies that persists even in the world's wealthiest countries. In the US, for example, only 15 chief executives of Fortune 500 countries are women while in France, none of their CAC 40 share index firms have chief executives that are women. The chart to the right conveys this by showing the percentage of board members and percentage of the executive committee that were women in 2010. Norway had the highest percentage of female board members at a little over 30% while it fell somewhere between 5 and 15% for most other countries.

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Holders of the U.S. Federal Debt

A recent Daily Chart blog on The Economist's website includes an interactive graphic created by Congressional Quarterly that breaks down the U.S. federal debt by its various bondholders. As of the end of March, the total federal debt was 14.27 trillion dollars to holders of US Treasury securities. The two graphics below indicate these holders of US Treasury securities and the amount that they hold in billions of dollars. As the chart indicates, the three nations that hold the largest amount of US debt are China (with 1.15 trillion dollars), Japan (with 906.9 billion dollars) and the United Kingdom (with 333 billion dollars). It is important to note that this doesn't necessarily mean that the governments or central banks of these countries own the securities, but are simply the location of the securities. Additionally, about 4.61 trillion dollars of the federal debt is held by US government accounts, over half of which (2.61 trillion dollars) is held by Social Security trust funds. Who actually holds the federal debt has become relevant recently, as a government default has become a feasible possibility with the approach of the debt ceiling deadline (August 2nd). As a related Congressional Quarterly article discusses, an increase in the debt ceiling is necessary to prevent a default so that the government can continue to borrow in order to meet its financial obligations.
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The Rising Cost of Food Stamps

A recent article in the Economist discusses the rising costs of food stamps in recent years. As the chart (right) indicates, costs have risen from $35 billion in 2008 to $65 billion last year. Participation has also increased, as nearly 45 million (or one in seven) Americans were recipients of food stamps in April 2011. With budget debates continuing, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have proposed a 20% reduction in spending on the program by 2015 in their budget outline for next year. The author of this article points out, however, that benefits are "far from lavish," the average being $133 a month, and the recipients are the neediest portion of the population. About half of recipients are children and 18% are elderly. To be eligible, recipients must be receiving an income of 130% or less of the poverty line, but 41% of recipients earn half of that amount or less and 18% earn no income at all. The author also discusses the economic benefits of the food stamps program, quoting Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Centre, who argues that food stamps stimulate the economy more than other forms of government spending because the money is typically spent immediately due to the low income of recipients.
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Are Moderate Republican Governors Going Extinct?

In a recent FiveThirtyEight blog post, Nate Silver rated each governor's political ideology and the ideology of voters in the governor's state on a scale from liberal to conservative. He found that Republican governors--unlike their Democratic counterparts--are abandoning the middle, and are often taking conservative stances that outpace the more moderate views of the voters who elected them to office.

Writes Silver: "Unlike for the Democrats, there is almost no ideological diversity within the group: essentially all of the current Republican governors are quite conservative, taking moderate positions on at most one or two issues. Also unlike the Democrats, there is no correlation between the ideology of the governors and the ideology of the states."

This may be a dangerous development for the Republican party, as "Politics 101 would suggest that you need to be at least somewhat responsive to voters in your state." According to Silver, it is also a fairly recent development. He plots the ideological stances of governors in office a year ago--before the 2010 elections--to show that "there were plenty of moderate Republican governors," many of whom have retired since.

 
 Silver argues that Republican governors' distance from their state's ideology has made them unpopular--and may hurt the G.O.P. in the next election. He writes: "Retribution from the electorate is a strong possibility unless there is a change of course."

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Pew: Public Divided on Significance of August 2 Debt Limit Deadline, Potential Consequences

According to a July 15-17 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the public is divided on the importance of the August 2 deadline to raise the debt limit. Forty percent of those polled say that - based on what they've read and heard - it is "absolutely essential that the federal debt limit be raised by Aug. 2 to avoid an economic crisis," but 39% believe the deadline could come and go "without major economic problems."

Opinions on the subject are correlated to partisan affiliation: while 53% of Republicans believe the deadline could pass without major problems and 30% take the opposite opinion, the percentages are reversed among Democrats; 56% of Democrats believe raising the debt limit is essential, while only 28% do not. A plurality of independents (43%) say the deadline could pass without major economic problems. Republicans who agree with the Tea Party were most likely (65%) to say the deadline could pass without major problems. Interestingly, "the degree of attention to this issue has only a modest relationship with peoples’ impressions of the seriousness of the Aug. 2 deadline." Both those who are following the issue closely and those who are following it less closely are divided on the importance of the deadline.

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Gender and Employment in the Recession

A recent article by Pew Research Center discusses Bureau of Labor Statistics and Current Employment Statistics (CES), which both show a gap between men and women's employment rates during the recession and in the last two years of economic recovery. According to the data, women seemed to fare better during the recession (from 2007 to 2009), losing only 2,139,000 jobs compared to the 5,351,000 jobs men lost during the same time period. During the post-recession period (from 2009 to 2011), however, men gained 768,000 jobs while women lost 218,000 jobs. Men fared better in all sectors of the economy, most notably retail. The only exception in which women gained jobs while men lost them was the state government sector. However, this article points out that "during the full arc" of the recession (2007 to 2011), men have been hit harder than women (men's unemployment rates went from 5.1% to 9.5% while women's unemployment rate went from 4.9% to 8.5%).

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As Shuttle Program Nears End, Majority of Americans See U.S. Leadership in Space as Essential

A timely survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that 58% of Americans believe it is essential that the U.S. continues to be a leader in space exploration. The U.S. space shuttle program begins its final mission today, thirty years after the first shuttle, Columbia, was sent out in 1981. A majority of those polled (55%) say the shuttle program was a good investment, a healthy percentage but lower than figures in the 1980s, when sixty percent or more believed it was a good investment.Majorities across demographic groups believe continued U.S. space exploration is essential. This holds true for partisan groups as well, although a higher percentage of Republicans (67%) believe it is essential, as compared with independents (57%) and Democrats (54%).
Those with a higher level of education are more likely to view the space shuttle program as a good investment. Approximately two-thirds of college graduates (66%) say it was a good investment, along with 57% of Americans with some college education. The percentage drops among those with lower levels of education, with 47% of Americans with no college education saying the program was a good investment, as compared with 43% who say it was not.

Wealthier families--those with annual incomes of $75,000 or more--are more likely to evaluate the program favorably: 67% of those families say it was a good investment, compared with only 27% who say it was not. Families with incomes under $30,000 per year are more divided in their evaluations, with 44% viewing the program favorably and 47% unfavorably.And while large majorities say the space shuttle program "helped encourage interest in science, led to scientific advances and contributed to feelings of patriotism...no more than about four-in-ten say that the program has contributed 'a lot' in any of these areas."

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Fewer Mexicans Emigrating to U.S. Illegally, as Demographic, Economic and Social Changes Make Mexico More Appealing

An article in the New York Times addressed recent economic, demographic and social changes in Mexico and their impact on illegal immigration to the United States. According to Damien Cave of the Times, "A growing body of evidence suggests that a mix of developments — expanding economic and educational opportunities, rising border crime and shrinking families — are suppressing illegal traffic as much as economic slowdowns or immigrant crackdowns in the United States." Cave cites Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, as saying "that interest in heading to the United States for the first time ha[s] fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s." And census data shows that the illegal Mexican population in the U.S. is declining, as "fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004."
One potential factor in declining illegal immigration rates is demographic change: the birth rate in Mexico has gone down drastically in recent years, and with it the number of potential immigrants has also decreased. The fertility rate in Mexico is roughly two children per woman, significantly down from 6.8 in 1970. With fewer children being born, the potential pool of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. gets smaller, but just as importantly, economic prospects improve within Mexico, as there are fewer people competing for the same jobs. Writes Cave: "While Mexico added about one million new potential job seekers annually in the 1990s, since 2007 that figure has fallen to an average of 800,000, according to government birth records. By 2030, it is expected to drop to 300,000." Furthermore, Cave cites once economist, Roberto Newell, whose figures show a Mexican economy on the rise, with per capita gross domestic product and family income up more than 45 percent since 2000.

Cave writes that any migrant's decision is based on his/her evaluation of prospects at home and potential ones at his/her destination--and the cost associated with travel between the two places. That cost has increased for Mexican illegals, as crossing illegally "has become more expensive and more dangerous, particularly with drug cartels dominating the border." And it appears that for many Mexicans who might cross into the United States illegally at other times, the current difference in opportunity and living standards in the two countries is not enough to spur their movement. Wages increased in Mexico even as they decreased among immigrants in the U.S. during the recession; provision of electricity and running water, and more advanced public services such as trash collection, are expanding in Mexico; and more Mexicans are obtaining higher educational degrees, as the number of schools offering degrees also increases. Of course, many Mexicans still wish to emigrate to America, but more are doing so legally. Still, immigration--and the newer question of "the expansion to legal immigration"--continues to be a polarizing topic, one that Cave suggests is "inevitably divisive."

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Does The United States Stand Above All Other Countries?

A recent survey done by the Pew Research Center shows that most people think that the U.S. is among the greatest countries in the world, and 38% believe that the U.S. is the best country in the world. This belief is most common among those 65 and older and among Republicans. Those who are less educated are also slightly more likely to think that the U.S. is better than other countries. Most 18-29-year-olds, Democrats, and Independents believe that the U.S. is among the greatest countries in the world, but not above all others.

When this data was broken down by political affiliation, they found a lot of variation in how different political groups view the United States. Staunch conservatives are the only group where a clear majority believes that the U.S. is better than other countries. This is in stark contrast to the solid liberals, where only 19% believe that the U.S. stands above other countries. Other groups are move divided on the issue, but most groups believe that the U.S. is among the best.

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