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The U.S. economy added 206,000 jobs in June, unemployment rate ticks up

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The U.S. economy added 206,000 jobs in June, the Labor Department said on Friday.

Why it matters: Job gains were in line with economists' expectations, but the report showed signs the labor market is cooling off. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1%, the highest since November 2021.


  • Job gains in the past two months were weaker than initially known: The Labor Department said there were a combined 111,000 fewer jobs added in April and May.

By the numbers: Government, health care and construction are among the sectors that added the most workers.

  • Average hourly earnings, a gauge of how quickly pay is rising, were up 0.3% in June and up 3.9% compared to the same time last year.

What to watch: The Federal Reserve, which has held interest rates at a two-decade high for nearly a year, is watching the labor market closely for signs of weakness.

  • Fed officials say they want further proof that inflation is definitively dissipating before cutting interest rates. But the state of the labor market will factor into that decision, too.

What they're saying: "We are well aware that if we go too soon, that we can undo the good work we've done in bringing down inflation," Fed chair Jerome Powell said earlier this week.

  • "And if we go too late, we could unnecessarily undermine the recovery and expansion."


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Amtrak ‘excited’ by potential of new Atlanta intercity rail hub

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Amtrak ‘excited’ by potential of new Atlanta intercity rail hub Josh Green Wed, 07/03/2024 - 10:37

As first reported on these pages last month, Amtrak’s general and legislative annual report for fiscal year 2025 includes a request for nearly $30 million in federal funding to secure a development site for a new intercity rail hub in Atlanta—and to start the process of building it.

Officials with America’s National Railroad Passenger Corporation have now responded to our inquiries to praise Atlanta’s potential as a strategic hub location, but they aren’t divulging where it could possibly be built in the city.  

Amtrak has pinpointed intown Atlanta for a new station that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and, eventually, reestablish the city as the important rail hub it historically was. It’s part of Amtrak’s ambitious national growth spurt and hiring spree. According to Amtrak’s report, some of the Atlanta land in question is “at imminent risk of development,” but the location is referred to only vaguely as being in downtown Atlanta.

Whether “downtown” in this case actually means downtown Atlanta, or is a general reference to more urban parts of the city, isn't yet clear.

In response to questions regarding to the potential hub’s location and development process, Amtrak officials supplied a statement Tuesday that reads, in part, “We are excited to work with local, state, federal, and railroad partners to help secure a site for an improved and expanded Amtrak station in Atlanta.”

Being that three Atlanta-anchored rail corridors have been accepted into the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development program, “a new [Atlanta] station could support existing service as well as future expansion,” Amtrak’s statement continues. “Securing funding will support the initial planning and design, and advance the project toward creating a new station to meet the needs of customers and is worthy of a major metropolitan region.”

Courtesy of High Speed Rail Alliance

As revealed in June, Amtrak’s $29.9 million grant request for “Atlanta Hub” would support property acquisition to preserve future railroad right-of-way and "ensure that the Hub station site can be connected with existing main line track,” per the report. The funding would also help cover early phase prerequisites such as engineering and work to have the project cleared under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

But that funding would only be a start. Amtrak estimates the new Atlanta facility would cost roughly $700 million once needed infrastructure investments are factored in. That includes new trackage to separate passenger service from freight operations.

Amtrak has signaled interest in recent years to reestablish Atlanta as a predominant railroad hub, with routes fingering out to Charlotte, Nashville, Macon, Montgomery, Birmingham, Savannah, and other cities. Today, just one Amtrak line serves Atlanta—the New York City-to-New Orleans Crescent.

Amtrak’s report states the modernized new station would boost the customer experience on the Crescent route and link Atlanta with new intercity passenger trains to cities small and large—Chattanooga, Greenville, SC, Memphis, and Meridian, MS are all named—in addition to the airport.  

The grant request isn’t tied to any proposals already moving through the FRA’s Corridor Identification and Development program process, but it’s compatible with that effort, per Amtrak.

In 2022, the Atlanta City Council passed a resolution urging Amtrak to consider downtown as a viable location for a rail hub; at the time, the $5-billion Centennial Yards megaproject was considered the leading alternative, with the Armour Yards district near Lindbergh also being mentioned.

In April, Armour Yards was revealed as one of four locations where Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wants to see BeltLine-connected MARTA infill stations built in coming years, though how those would be funded remains a question mark.

Meanwhile, Centennial Yards has seen fencing erected this week to restrict Gulch parking access and begin development of its next phase, an 8-acre entertainment district scheduled to be operational in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, as the AJC reports

Atlanta’s current Amtrak station, as the report details, was built in 1918 in what was then a suburban setting, designed for a small number of passengers. Other drawbacks include no parking, no connections to local transit, an undersized waiting room, and poor access from the station building to its single platform below, which is a particular challenge for disabled passengers, the report notes.

The request for Atlanta funding came as part of $4 billion in Amtrak grant requests for base needs and modernization of its system as passenger numbers are on the uptick. According to CEO Stephen Gardner, Amtrak is on pace to grow its ridership to 66 million annual passengers—more than doubling peak ridership in pre-pandemic 2019—by 2040. In fiscal year 2025, Amtrak expects ridership to reach nearly 35 million.  

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Passenger rail corporation isn't disclosing intown site at risk of unrelated development
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Atlanta’s e-bike program kicks into gear

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In early 2024, the City of Atlanta announced a joint electric bike rebate program alongside the Atlanta Regional Commission and Propel ATL. That time has finally arrived.

Starting Sunday June 17, City of Atlanta residents could apply for one of four rebate program tiers:

  • Standard E-Bike ($500)
  • Standard E-Cargo Bike ($1000)
  • Income Qualified E-Bike ($1500)
  • Income Qualified E-Cargo Bike ($2000)

Expecting a high demand of applicants, the city only gave a one week period for applicants which expired Sunday June 23. By the end of the week, they had about 9,000 applicants.

Now, those applicants have been selected at random for the rebates and can be used to purchase e-bikes to ride on the streets of Atlanta. About 400 applicants were selected for this round of rebates.

So far, there is no word on how the rebates were distributed across those four categories. Applicants who were not selected will be automatically entered into subsequent lotteries, according to Propel ATL.

A screenshot form a map showing the participating shops for the e-bike rebate. (Map from Atlanta Regional Commission.)

Awardees will be able to redeem their rebates from one of 12 shops inside the cities boundaries that are partnered with the initiative. A full interactive map of participating locations can be found here.

Kathy Woirol, owner of the electric bike shop Pedego Atlanta since 2021 and one of the 12 certified shops, is excited for the rebates to finally be in swing. She said that she’s been waiting over a year to see this initiative fully realized and originally heard it would be launching on Earth Day in 2023.

“It’s about time, that’s my honest answer,” Woirol said. “I’m hoping that it means that people are going to go out and shop for e-bikes.”

White awards were notified this past week, the partnering organizations will still need to verify the applicants’ eligibility — things like their City of Atlanta address and their yearly earnings for those applied for the income qualified tiers — over the course of the next few weeks. 

Still, Woirol is hoping people will start entering her shop by late July.

These rebates should be a big help for people looking to get into this alternative mode of transportation, Woirol expects, since e-bikes can cost thousands of dollars. The bikes in her shop, for example, start at around $2000.

Regardless of how many people buy from her shop, however, Woirol also said that the initiative has raised awareness around the biking community in the city. A rider herself, she’s seen the city embrace bikes and e-bikes more and more.

“E-bikes are still relatively a new concept to the mass market, so I’m hoping that the program has raised awareness particularly for people who otherwise would not get on a bike,” Woirol said. “I’m hoping that the program is helping more people understand that they still can get on a bike and enjoy it.”

She added that events like Propel ATL’s Atlanta Streets Alive, where portions of major roads like Peachtree Street are closed to allow bikers to cruise down safely, have been helpful in raising awareness for e-bikes; the event now hosts e-bike expos along their riding corridors, where riders can see and test e-bikes to get a better feel for them.

The next Streets Alive is scheduled for July 28th.

The post Atlanta’s e-bike program kicks into gear appeared first on SaportaReport.

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Unveiling the Union: Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Marriage in Major Metros

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June is both Pride Month and the anniversary of the 2015 Obergefell decision that legalized marriage equality[1] . As such, it is a good time to examine the state of same-sex couples in the Atlanta region. How prevalent are same-sex couples? How do same-sex marriage rates compare to those for opposite-sex marriage? And how does the Atlanta region compare to other major metropolitan areas?

To address these questions, we use data from the most recent (2022) release of the American Community Survey 1-year estimates. Figure 1 shows the total number of same-sex households[2] for each of the 20 largest (by population) metropolitan areas in the United States.

Figure 1: Same-Sex Households in the Top 20 US Metros

Same-Sex Households x Metro Area

It should come as no surprise that New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago– the three largest metro areas in terms of total population and total households– also have the largest numbers of same-sex households. But from there, the two sets of rankings diverge. Washington DC, Miami, and San Francisco occupy positions 4, 5, and 6 with regards to the number of same-sex couples despite being only the 7th, 9th, and 12th largest metros respectively. And Atlanta, which recently moved up to #6 in terms of population, occupies only the #11 spot for the number of same-sex couples.

Figure 2 below examines marriage rates among same-sex and opposite-sex for these same metros. Bars are sorted by the size of the gap between marriage rates between the two groups.

Figure 2: Marriage Rates in the Top 20 Metros

Marriage Rates for Same Sex vs. Opposite Sex Couples x Major Metro

Figure 2 reveals that same-sex couples are much less likely to marry than opposite-sex couples—even seven years after the Obergefell decision. The gap in marriage rates in these metros ranged from a high of 35.2 points in Denver to a low of 15.2 points in Baltimore. Atlanta had the second highest gap at 34.6 points.

What accounts for these differences? One potential explanation is the legal environment in each state.[3] Figure 3 below shows marriage rates of same-sex couples by state. Red bars represent states where an existing ban on same-sex marriage would likely return to force if Obergefell were ever overturned, while green bars represent states where marriage equality would likely remain protected.

Figure 3: Same-Sex Marriage Rates by State

As Figure 3 shows, eight of the ten states with the highest marriage rates among same-sex couples provide statutory protection for such marriages. But this theory only provides a partial explanation: some states lacking protection like Wyoming have high same-sex marriage rates. And others like New Mexico and Washington, DC have relatively low rates despite providing such protections. Still, it does appear to matter overall: the mean marriage rate among same-sex couples is 61.1% among states where same-sex marriages would remain protected should Obergefell ever be reversed, as compared with only 55.7% across those states where these unions would likely be banned.

Footnotes

[1] Through the 5-to-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court in 2015 that failure of states to allow and recognize same-sex marriages violated the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the 14th Amendment, thus opening the way to nationwide marriage equality. For more on this decision, see https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/supreme-court-case-library/obergefell-v-hodges. However, some states had legalized same-sex marriage prior to Obergefell— Massachusetts was first, in 2003. And other states, including Georgia, retain laws on the books– though nullified by the Supreme Court decision– banning same-sex marriage.

[2] The Census Bureau Table B11009, that looks directly at coupled households by type. This table breaks coupled households down into married vs. cohabiting couples, same-sex vs. opposite sex couples, and within same-sex couples differentiates between male householder and male partner vs. female householder and female partner. Unfortunately, B11009 is only available for states, regions, and the nation as a whole. For metro areas, therefore, we utilize a nearly equivalent proxy, the number of people who are the spouse or cohabiting partner of the head of household, which can be found in Table B09019.

[3] For more information on the legislative environment in each state as reported in this graph, please see https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jul/20/what-states-would-ban-same-sex-marriage-if-supreme/.

The post Unveiling the Union: Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Marriage in Major Metros appeared first on 33n.

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New Georgia Opportunity Zones aim to uplift parts of SW Atlanta

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New Georgia Opportunity Zones aim to uplift parts of SW Atlanta Josh Green Wed, 06/26/2024 - 17:26

A program that’s helped create thousands of jobs and lent economic boosts to parts of Atlanta has now been approved for two important corridors on the city’s southwest side.

The Georgia Department of Community Affairs has designated areas of land along Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and on Campbellton Road near Greenbriar Mall as Opportunity Zones in an effort to attract economic investment, officials with Invest Atlanta announced today.

In Georgia, the Opportunity Zone program aims to encourage job creation, economic revitalization, and business growth by providing tax credits to businesses that generate jobs within designated areas.

The Southwest Atlanta parcels in question, according to Invest Atlanta officials, met DCA requirements for Opportunity Zone status as they were deemed to be underdeveloped, blighted, and under general distress.

On Campbellton Road, the properties mostly fall within Atlanta City Council District 11, and on MLK Jr. Drive, they’re largely within District 10. (We’ve asked Invest Atlanta for specific addresses or a map that highlights the parcels in question, and we’ll update this story with any further details that come.) [UPDATE: 2:10 p.m. June 27: Please see the maps provided by Invest Atlanta today at the bottom of this article.] 

Potential redesigns of MARTA's Oakland City station that came to light in 2022. Xmetrical

In any case, businesses located on the specified parcels are now eligible to apply for Opportunity Zone tax credits, a process coordinated in the city by Invest Atlanta.

In Georgia, the $3,500 (per job) state tax credit is made available to businesses that create at least two jobs in a tax year. The credits are good for up to five years—up to a maximum of $17,500, so long as the new jobs are maintained, according to program officials.

The sections of Campbellton Road and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive will join seven other Georgia Opportunity Zones currently active across the city. According to Dr. Eloisa Klementich, Invest Atlanta president and CEO, the Opportunity Zone programs have generated 4,601 jobs in underserved areas of Atlanta over the past five years.

“These new Opportunity Zone designations, extending from the West Lake MARTA station all the way to [Interstate] 285, will spark new economic activity and job creation in District 10 along the MLK corridor,” said Andrea Boone, Atlanta City Councilmember, in a prepared statement.

Those join more than 8,760 Qualified Opportunity Zones across the United States, each designated to spur economic growth and investment in distressed areas through tax incentives, as established under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The news follows MARTA’s announcement in April that the Federal Transit Administration has awarded a $750,000 grant that’s expected to put planning efforts into motion for equitable redevelopment of communities along MARTA’s future bus rapid transit line on Campbellton Road. (See examples of what that could look like in the gallery above).

The transit agency is working alongside City of Atlanta officials on that project’s planning phase, according to MARTA.

Invest Atlanta

Invest Atlanta

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Potential redesigns of MARTA's Oakland City station that came to light in 2022. Xmetrical

The scope of the future MARTA transit corridor being studied. Xmetrical

Potential development around Fort McPherson station could include (1.) mid-rise projects of four to five stories, (2.) an improved streetscape with dedicated bike lanes and other features, and (3.) urban-gridded blocks with connections to Tyler Perry Studios. Xmetrical

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Atlanta awarded $16 million grant to upgrade Westside transportation

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A booming swath of Westside Atlanta is poised to become safer to navigate on foot and bike.

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