In this episode of Commitment Matters, Mary speaks with Dr. Ted Jones, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at Stewart Title Guaranty Company. If you’d like to learn more about the company, check out Stewart.com. You can reach Ted by email at tejones@stewart.com, read his blog at blog.stewart.com or follow him on Twitter.
During their conversation, Ted or Mary mentioned:
- The pandemic accelerated moving rates out of California and the New England states and into the Pacific Northwest, Southwest and Southern states.
- It’s been more than two years (700+ days) since the pandemic shut everything down and people started to work from home. Ted says that it takes about 66 days of repeating an action to make it a habit, so now working remotely has become a lifestyle.
- From July 2020-July 2021, The U.S. population grew 0.01%. The top growing states were Idaho (1.9%), Utah (1.7%), Montana (1.7%), Arizona (1.4%), South Carolina (1.2%), Delaware (1.2%).
- Texas grew 1.3%, but gained the most in total population (more than 300,000). Florida was second, gaining 200,000 people.
- Ted points out that Washington, D.C. had the biggest population percentage loss (2.9%). He notes that’s probably because of high taxes. California, New York, Illinois and Hawaii are other high tax states that many people have moved from.
- Check out TurboTax’s list of states with highest and lowest tax rates.
- In 2014, the U.S. produced 8.8 million barrels of oil per day with 525,000 workers. Oil prices were $93 per barrel. In 2020, the U.S. produced 30% more oil (nearly 13 million barrels per day) with 40% fewer workers. Oil prices dropped 60%.
- Ted says the U.S. currently produces oil with 76% fewer drilling rigs because of how technology has impacted business. Here’s the latest Drilling Productivity Report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
- In February 2020-May 2020, the U.S. lost 24 million jobs (14.7% of the workforce). Currently, several states have higher levels of job growth than ever before; Utah, Idaho, Texas and Arizona.
- Ted says the hospitality industry will take a long time to recover since people are invested in their new homes and are working from home. The hardest hit states are Nevada (4.7% short) and Hawaii (12.4% short).
- Ted describes the 380 Metropolitan statistical areas, which are smaller cities that have a population of 50,000 or more. These areas are succeeding more in job growth and job recovery from the pandemic.
- United Van Lines shared its most popular inbound and outbound states by percentage during 2021.
- In the service industry, Ted points out the differences that the addition of drive-thrus, drive-up windows and curbside pickup can make on a business. He used the example of Chipotle adding drive-thru windows and saw store sales increase by 15%.
- Ted describes omnichannel marketing as the best way to sell to reach customers of all demographics and markets.
- Ted talks about an over-valued stock market, using Tesla as an example. Tesla sold 1.2% of the 70 million cars sold worldwide last year, however, the company is worth $1.1 trillion, which is equal to the combined market cap of nine carmakers who sold 57 million cars in 2021.
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