Newsy trends

Change is a constant in social structures, and trends are often early indicators. Trends become patterns; patterns reshape society. Some trends—like crime-wave spikes—do damage in the here and now. Others take time, maybe years or decades, before their effects become destructive.

Not all trends bode ill; some bode well. A few timely headlines have highlighted trends that warrant mention.

Higher education enrollments are down. For minorities, they’re way down.

In 2011, the total number of students enrolled in Arkansas’ 24 four-year and 23 two-year colleges was 173,887.

Ten years later, the state Division of Higher Education reported recently, that number has fallen by more than 16 percent. The fall 2021 headcount of higher education students was only 145,695, even as the state population grew by 3.3 percent during that same time period.

This would be alarming anywhere, but particularly so in a state with one of the lowest educational attainment scores in the union. Ranked 48th among states, Arkansas’ percentage of population with a bachelor’s degree is 30 percent below the national average.

The top-ranked state is Massachusetts, but even there college enrollments are falling. And across the nation, the decline is steeper among students of color, who are already starting statistically behind.

While fewer than one in four Arkansans overall holds a bachelor’s degree or higher, the number is half that for Black males, and barely a third for Hispanic males.

Voter suppression worries are way up. Paradoxically, so are primary turnouts.

The Chicken Littles of disenfranchisement were out in full force back in 2021, carping and clamoring that the sky was falling because state legislatures across the country were passing new election laws to ensure voter integrity and reduce fraud.

A New Yorker Magazine columnist called the movement a “wild assault” on voting rights that intended to “undermine confidence in our democracy itself.”

Arkansas rolled out more than 20 laws during the 2021 legislative session, which prompted one Democratic state representative to accuse Republican lawmakers of pulling pages from the “Jim Crow handbook” to prevent people from voting.

History would judge the “sweeping changes,” Rep. Fred Love warned, “and it will show that these laws, all they do is disenfranchise people.”

It didn’t take long for history to pass judgment.

And, whew, if disenfranchisement and voter suppression was the goal of Republicans, they failed, and how. It seems all those laws did was boost ballot-box participation—to record-setting levels in some precincts.

Arkansas’ voter turnout in the first primary since those 20 laws were passed (and several confirmed by the Arkansas Supreme Court) was the highest for a midterm election since 2010. The turnout exceeded secretary of state projections by nearly 100,000 voters.

Some of the loudest national condemnations in 2021 were aimed at Georgia, where liberal critics lambasted the Republican legislature for “overhauling” election laws to intentionally suppress votes.

So what happened in the Georgia primary election in May? Early voting set a new record—it was up 168 percent over 2018, the last gubernatorial primary, and up a whopping 212 percent over 2020, the last presidential primary year.

Overall, more than 1.9 million Georgia voters cast a ballot in the primary—including the highest number of minorities ever—compared to only 1.16 million in 2018.

Election integrity laws don’t make voting hard. They make cheating hard.

For all who truly value voter turnout by verifiably eligible citizens: Thank you, legislators.

Home prices are skyrocketing. Household incomes aren’t.

The number of “million-dollar cities” (where the average price of a house exceeds $1 million) tripled between 2020 and 2022, according to Zillow. In few of the now 481 such cities can the average household income afford the average home.

The first-time states home to several of the 146 new million-dollar cities include Idaho, Montana and Tennessee. Those places are worlds away from California, New York and Massachusetts, where the most new cities with average home values in seven figures were added. Most line large coastal areas, and nearly half of all such cities are in California.

Far outside the city limits of million-dollar enclaves, the nationwide median price of a home increased by $85,500 from January 2020 to a new high north of $400,000. In highly desirable real estate markets, homes are often selling above the asking price, in a matter of hours—after receiving multiple offers in competitive bidding.

How much household income is required to buy a $400,000-plus home? The answer depends on several factors, including other debt (such as car payments), credit score, local property taxes and amount of down payment.

But a quick rule-of-thumb estimate would be that the bare minimum would be $100,000 annual income, and a more fiscally conservative baseline would be $125,000 (both of which assumes enough savings to put up a decent down payment).

The national median household income is around $75,000, and no state boasts a six-figure median. Arkansas statewide median is around $48,000 (which is adequate to cover the median home price of $140,000).

But whatever the income figure, it’s threatened by another dangerous trend: rising inflation.