[PRCo] Re: living in PA

[Fred Schneider]

This again is for Jerry but the rest of you can delete or read  
depending on how much you care to be abused.

It's all about labor economics in southeastern Pennsylvania by a guy  
who worked in the field and ultimately managed all the field analysts  
doing the work in this part of the state.

No, Jerry, York isn't stagnant.   It's unemployment rate in April  
2008, seasonally adjusted, was 4.3 percent of the labor force, which  
is about half a percent better than the national average.  In  
general, for the last 50 years, there has been a prosperous growth  
belt that lies south and east of the Appalachian Mountains and  
outside of Philadelphia County proper.  In more recent years there  
appears to have been a decline or at least a stagnation in some of  
the  parts of Delaware County close to the City of Philadelphia.   
Chester has gone down hill just like Philadelphia.   I've noticed  
that the Sharon Hill line of Red Arrow has changed from suburban  
white to suburban black but it still has a middle class look to it.    
But we all know there are people who hire people because they look  
like themselves, which could hurt some of those people.

Lebanon, Pennsylvania was also hit when Bethlehem Steel closed its  
screw and bolt mill.  However, so many people have commuted to jobs  
with Hershey Foods and with the state government in Harrisburg that  
Lebanon  is sometimes a separate MSA and then a new census is taken  
and O. M. B. merges it with Harrisburg.  It is marginally on it's own  
and there is cheaper housing there than in Harrisburg or Hershey or  
Lancaster but not a whole lot cheaper ... not cheap when you compare  
it to housing in Bedford or Sayre or Wilkes-Barre.  Lebanon had the  
lowest unemployment in the state at 3.8 percent of the labor force.

York tended in the past to be dominated by heavy industry York  
Corporation (Yorkaire), Caterpillar tractor, Harley-Davidson, while  
Lancaster firms manufactured consumer goods and in many cases  
discretionary consumer goods (boats, recreational vehicles).   
Caterpillar closed the factory about 20 years ago leaving only a  
warehousing operation and that did hurt York.   On the other-hand,  
southern York County has become a bedroom community for Baltimore and  
its extended suburbs.   Between 5:00 and 5:30 on any weekday  
afternoon, Interstate 78 coming north from Baltimore into lower York  
County behaves like an accordion.   Baltimore is not a destination,  
but its suburbs are and many of those people work in the Baltimore  
suburbs.

The next big growth area is the Chambersburg - Waynesboro area far to  
the west of York southwest of Harrisburg.   Like Lancaster, low-wage  
rates in the mid-century caused a lot of firms to choose to locate  
there.   But more recently I can see that area becoming suburban  
Washington DC.  I kid thee not.   Ed Lybarger's daughter lives in  
Thurmont, Maryland, which is on US 15 between Gettysburg and  
Frederick, MD.   She works in the Washington area and commutes in  
every day.   The National Bureau of Standards found itself unable to  
get competent workers in the District of Columbia and moved out to  
Frederick or Hagerstown about 40 years ago.  If you drive I-70 west  
from Washington in the late afternoon, it's gang busters.   And look  
at the MARC schedules -- again we have commuter service to  
Frederick.   So I can see that, eventually that whole Hagerstown,  
Frederick, Gettysburg, Chambersburg, Waynesboro area can become a  
massive western suburb of Washington.   Washington DC itself has  
grown by as much as dropping Pittsburgh on top of it since Metro  
opened in 1976 and this growth to the west is just in addition.  What  
happens with $4, or $5 or $10 gasoline.   Your guess is as good as mine.

If any area in southeastern Pennsylvania has stagnated, it might be  
Berks County where the principal city is Reading (pronounced like the  
color Red'-ing).  The Reading Railroad, during the period when  
anthracite coal was used for home heating, was one of the most  
profitable class one railroads in the nation.  It probably grossed  
more per mile of track than any other Class 1.  It's principal shops  
were in Reading.   Even though the electric MU cars were maintained  
at Wayne Junction (Philadelphia), heavy repairs on those cars was  
done in Reading too.  Reading built locomotives up through the G3  
Pacifics and T1 Northerns in 1948.   The railroad was probably the  
largest employer in town.  The second largest employer that hired men  
for skilled, high paying jobs was Carpenter Steel (Cartech today).    
Well we all know what happened to the steel industry.   At the  
Reading railroad shops was one of those facilities that Conrail  
decided it did not need after 1976.   The largest employer of women  
was Berkshire Knitting, which employed several thousand girls making  
nylon stockings.   Berkshire decided not to install the new looms for  
panty hose when the mini-skirt craze came in in the late 1960s.    
Horst and Nolde was also in that same business: just slightly smaller  
than Berkshire.   They are also gone today.   About the only  
garment / textile firm I can think of that is still in business in  
Berks County might be Valley Forge Flag Company ... makes American  
flags but they have a hard time competing with the Chinese.   I can  
think of one boot company that remains.   Hamilton Bank built a huge  
corporate office downtown and just after it opened, Wachovia closed  
it.   Reading had the second highest unemployment in April at 5.1  
percent of the labor force.

Bethlehem was hurt in the early to middle 1980s, just like  
Pittsburgh, in this instance first by the closure of the basic steel  
operations of Bethlehem Steel Corporation and then later by the  
closure of Bethlehem's coke works in Hellertown.  Initially, however,  
it did not have a profound affect on that area because people were  
moving into the area who were commuting every day over Interstate 78  
jobs in northern New Jersey or New York City.   Let's just say to  
jobs in the New York Consolidate Metropolitan Statistical Area ...  
that saves trying to define which county between Bridgeport CT and  
Somerset County NJ.   However, the Allentown - Bethlehem - Easton MSA  
had a lot of the same things going for it that made Lancaster strong  
and it has, until now, been able to weather any problems.   The  
$4.00, $5.00 and $10.00 a gallon gasoline is going to be a whole new  
issue in an area which has become a bedroom community for New York.   
This April, A-B-E was showing the highest unemployment in  
southeastern Pennsylvania at 5.3 percent of the labor force.

Now when I toss out unemployment figures, you need to understand the  
definitions.   They represent people who are out of work and who have  
looked for work in the last 30 days.   Do not be misguided by people  
want you to believe it has anything to with people whose unemployment  
claims have run out.   Has nothing whatsoever to do with claims.    
You can be working less than normal hours, be drawning a partial  
unemployment check and be considered employed.   You can also have  
exhausted benefits or been disqualified for benefits but if you  
looked for work in the month and had no work, then you meet the U. S.  
definition.   How do we know that you were out of work?   There is a  
monthly household survey done by the census department that selects  
about one percent of all the homes in the United States at random.    
That survey yields national accuracy to within 0.1 percent, i.e. if  
the unemployment rate moved from 4.4 to 4.5, maybe it did, maybe  
didn't.   But if it moved from 4.4 to 4.6, it did move and it went up  
by somewhere between 0.1 and 0.3.  The local and state rates are  
adjusted to that same household survey.   Are they as accurate?   
No.   But the annual averages certainly are in Pittsburgh or  
Pennsylvania or Philadelphia.   Is Rhode Island?   Who knows.   What  
are the chances of having a valid one-percent same in Rhode Island?   
Or  Wyoming?   But Pennsylvania data has always met reasonable tests  
of a 100% census count every ten years.

Notice the big flaw in this argument ... 'LOOKED FOR WORK IN THE LAST  
30 DAYS."  Southwestern Pennsylvania can post very low unemployment  
rates but those counties can also have very low labor force  
participation rates (that is the share of people working out of the  
population age 16 and over).   Note that I said 16 and over and not  
16 to 65 or not 16 to 70 or not 16 to 75.   There is no upper  
cutoff.   Because the Allegheny, Fayette, Westmoreland, Greene,  
Blair, Cambria, and Shenango counties have very elderly populations,  
they will tend to have low participation rates because many of the  
people are retired.   They are not working.  They are not looking for  
work.   But they are also not unemployed.  That is why Pittsburgh can  
come in with a 4.9 percent unemployment rate with so few people working.

Philadelphia County can also come in with a perhaps surprisingly low  
rate because some of those people are dumb as foxes.   They are on  
welfare.   They're not looking for work.

But you get into areas like Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, and some  
suburban Philadelphia Counties ... if you are out of work ... you are  
used to working and you are younger ... it is what you understand ...  
if the household survey gets you, you admit you have looked for  
work.  You are unemployed.

On Jun 13, 2008, at 3:32 PM, Jerry MATT Matsick wrote:

> Fred - when I was up at York in April 2007,  a friend and I drove  
> from Lancaster to Harrisburg, I could
> not believe the growth, where are these people coming from:?    
> Philly / Balto areas?   Where do they
> work?      Lancaster seems to be booming and yet York just 45  
> minutes to the west seems to be
> stagnant?    What ever happend to the "Trolley" talk that went on a  
> year or so ago in Lancaster?
> --
> From the RIVER CITY by the Sea!
> Jerry "Matt" Matsick
> J A C K S O N V I L L E, Florida !
>
> -------------- Original message from Fred Schneider  
> <fwschneider at comcast.net>: --------------
>
>