GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Consumer confidence among Floridians rose in July by three points from the revised June figure to 76, which is nine points higher than this time last year, according to a monthly University of Florida survey.
In the fall of 2007, as home prices in Florida began slipping and population growth braked drastically from what had been a 1,000-person-a-day clip, Wall Street Journal reporter Conor Dougherty wrote an article headlined "Is Florida Over?"
The Great Recession of 2008 is officially over, according to a panel of economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research, a widely accepted arbiter of business cycles. In fact, the recession reached its "trough" (end of the decline and the subsequent beginning of the rise) in June 2009.
History and economic patterns remind us that immediately following a trough, declining periods are categorized as expansion periods in which markets level, stabilize, prepare for growth, and no doubt, create opportunity.
Nearly four years after the start of a devastating recession, South Florida’s recovery barely musters a passing grade.
The hiring landscape can boast of only anemic job growth, but unemployment remains near record highs. Real estate prices are bumping along a bottom. Spending hasn’t kept pace with price increases. Only South Florida’s tourism and cargo industries can boast sustained growth.
Oct 7 (Reuters) - Florida just isn't what it used to be for retirees.
Meet Patti Keagy, an American Baby Boomer, who is looking at other possible retirement destinations.
"My mother says her generation and other people that she knew made a mistake. They sold everything and they moved down to Florida," said Keagy, a resident of a Boston suburb.
More than one in six Floridians are living poverty — the highest it has been in more than a decade, according to Census figures released this week.
Sixteen percent of Floridians were below the poverty level in 2010, up from 14.6 percent in 2009 reflecting a continuation of a steady climb in recent years. Florida’s 2010 rate is the highest it has been since 1995 when it was 16.2 percent.
MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida seniors were so rattled by proposed changes to Social Security emerging in the U.S. political debate that their consumer confidence levels plunged more than that of any other age group in August, an economic survey showed.
And that was before Texas Governor Rick Perry called the popular retirement program a "Ponzi scheme" during last week's debate among Republican presidential candidates.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Consumer confidence among Floridians decreased to a near-record low in August, according to a new University of Florida survey. This month’s mark of 62 is only three points higher than the record-low 59 set in June 2008.
For two years, they have bobbed along in a sea of anxiety. Shaken by job losses and sagging home values, their unease is reflected in the monthly consumer confidence reports produced by the University of Florida's Survey Research Center.
The Reubin O’D Askew Institute on Politics and Society has partnered with the Bureau of Economic and Business Research to develop a series of Florida Focus papers that highlight how various regions in Florida are positioning themselves to move forward after the Great Recession. This paper – the second in the series – is a background essay written for participants in a meeting titled “Orlando: Choosing Our Future after the Great Recession,” that was co‐sponsored by the Askew Institute and the City of Orlando on May 18, 2011.
