Latest news with #pandemicimpact
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
Our family of 4 shares a 900-square-foot apartment. The benefits outweigh the negatives.
I thought I would be raising my kids in a suburban house with a backyard. Instead, our family of four lives in a one-bedroom apartment with a study in an urban area. Living in an apartment was hard when our kids were babies, but now it's working for us. I never imagined I would be raising my kids in a 900-square-foot apartment. My husband and I had planned to move to a house in the suburbs just before our first baby was born. But then the pandemic struck, and real estate prices went up. Five years later, we still live in the same apartment, and now there are four of us. For a while, I felt inadequate about our living situation because we didn't live in a house with a backyard for our kids to run around and play in. Now I've realized that there are benefits to living in an urban apartment for our family, especially once the baby phase was behind us. There were things I really didn't like about living in an apartment when my kids were babies. For starters, it was hard to find room for all of the baby stuff. Some baby items just wouldn't fit neatly anywhere, such as the double stroller and the travel crib. It also seemed like the noises were amplified in our apartment, so our babies' cries felt louder than they really were. I was constantly worried that we were disturbing our neighbors' sleep. With only one bedroom and a study, I felt frustrated because I couldn't take a proper break from the demands of motherhood unless I left the apartment. That push to get out of the apartment for more space hasn't been all bad, though. It has led to more socializing with other families who live in our neighborhood. Our family spends a lot of time at the local parks, playgrounds, and playgroups. In doing so, we've connected with many other families, who have become our broader support network. Meeting other families who live in apartments has also helped to normalize our own living situation. It shows me that there's nothing wrong with raising kids in an apartment. With nearly everything we need at our doorstep, walking everywhere keeps us active and allows us to live an almost car-free lifestyle. We hardly ever have to wrestle our kids into car seats, worry about parking a car, or fill up the gas tank. When we don't even want to leave our apartment building, we use the shared communal space, which is equipped with a landscaped garden and grassy lawn—kind of like having a backyard. We work together to keep our apartment organized and functional, and try to limit how much stuff we own. We gift each other experiences and prefer to borrow toys and books instead of buying them. The smaller space strengthens our family's bond and fosters many shared experiences with each other. We intentionally gather together to do things as a family, yet we also feel comfortable doing independent activities side-by-side. While things didn't turn out quite as I had expected, I think we're making the most of our living situation. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Where homes are sitting on the market the longest and why
In recent years, the only certainty in the housing market is uncertainty. From the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic to unprecedented economic shifts, today's market has seen plenty of changes. Early in the pandemic, for instance, many buyers sought to take advantage of low mortgage rates, leading to a seller's market. Today, sellers still have a great deal of leverage in many places thanks to relatively low inventory. However, buyers have started to reclaim the advantage in a number of places. Cities across the American Sun Belt have started to see listings lingering on the market far longer than they did two or three years ago. Below, explores why that is and where it's happening the most. We can thank the COVID-19 pandemic for many of the realities we see shaping the real estate market today. Hot on the heels of the buying craze of 2021 and 2022 was a dramatic increase in listing prices. Sellers sought to take advantage of the sky-high demand, while buyers enjoyed a host of options to choose from. As of 2025, things look a bit different. While the demand for homes has dwindled, supply has not. What's more, many sellers haven't adjusted their expectations or home prices to match, with many asking for listing prices that reflect those they saw during the pandemic. As home prices grow–and mortgage rates inflate–many homes sit on the market for weeks and months at a time. Real estate listing data suggests that the median time homes spend on the market may be as high as 70 days, which is up from an estimated 30 days in 2022. While this trend may be true nationwide, it's affecting some cities and regions more than others. Most of the U.S. cities with long-lasting listings are in the Sun Belt, including Texas and Florida. That stands in contrast to the early days of COVID-19, when many younger families sought fairer climates to enjoy work-from-home arrangements. This analysis uses public real estate data from ListWithClever and recent estimates from St. Louis FED to examine where homes are taking the longest to sell as of 2025. Median home prices, supply, days-on-market, and local income data were considered to evaluate buyer leverage in select cities. The 305 area code is no longer the red-hot market it used to be a few years ago. The median time for Miami houses on the market in 2024 was 69 days, which is longer than all other major U.S. cities. The median home sales price in Miami is substantially above the national median, as many sellers are hoping to fetch high prices. Right behind Miami is Austin, Texas, a storied destination for arts and music lovers. After decades of robust population growth, home sales in Austin slowed considerably in 2024, and listings sat on the market for a median period of 66 days. The astonishing number of homes developers built during the population boom has provided ample supply for buyers looking to move to the Lone Star State, but many are still wary about pulling the trigger. One of the few northeastern cities to make 'longest-to-sell' lists, New York still boasts some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Accordingly, buyers are thinking very carefully before making such expensive purchases, especially with mortgage rates hovering near seven percent. Florida's largest city by population is also not seeing the turnover it experienced in 2021 and 2022. Home listings in Jacksonville last for a median period of 62 days, which is just behind Miami and Austin, Texas. The nation's seventh-largest city by population has surprisingly affordable homes. The median sales price of a San Antonio home in 2024 was just $308,000—far lower than the national median of $470,000. The median household income for a San Antonio family in 2023 was lower than that of all but two other cities (Pittsburgh and Birmingham, Alabama) on the list of the top 10 slowest-selling U.S. cities for homes. Although Pittsburgh has had a relatively soft landing after the decline of the city's once-ubiquitous steel industry, home sales declined from 2023 to 2024. The median sales price in Pittsburgh was the lowest among the top 10 slowest-selling U.S. cities, and median household income largely keeps pace. However, the rising inventory and stubbornly high mortgage rates have made Pittsburgh a buyer's market. Home sellers in Birmingham, the Pittsburgh of the South, can expect listings to stay on the market for a long time—around 57 days. Homes are relatively affordable, with the median sales price hovering around $286,000. The boundary for many potential buyers, however, is the city's low median household income, which is just short of $70,000. Sellers still have the upper hand in places like New England and the Midwest, but buyers are starting to see a shift in Florida, Texas, and a few large cities in the Northeast. Families and investors seeking nice neighborhoods can benefit from doing their due diligence (and research) in areas like these. Using resources like real estate databases and property record lookup tools can help you zoom in on great deals in markets where your money goes the furthest. This story was produced by Property Reach and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Standstill nation: America was getting up — then the pandemic sat us back down
Growing up in Harlem, Tazzarie Washington was always strolling to the park to meet with friends or play basketball. His weekdays in class were broken up by walks to various rooms or buildings, to school and back home. In those days 'I was a smaller kid,' Washington tells Yahoo. In 2019, he was 'pretty much active every day.' Then in March of 2020, the pandemic hit the United States. Suddenly, Zoom school replaced Washington's classroom shuffle. COVID lockdowns in New York City meant that going to see friends or play basketball with them in the park was out of the question. 'I really wasn't getting much activity because we couldn't go outside, and the house I was living in was pretty much packed to the brim, so it was hard to even move around there,' says Washington, who was 14 at the time. 'Every day I'd wake up super sluggish, and I just wanted to lay in bed,' he says. With him stuck at home, Washington's physical activity dropped to nearly zero. He was 'borderline depressed' and eating lots of sweets to cope. Over the next year and a half, his weight rose to more than 300 pounds. Washington is among many children, adolescents and adults whose activity levels dropped precipitously when the world effectively shut down. Between 2013 and March of 2020, the average amount of time Americans spent sitting was actually falling, decreasing by more than an hour, according to a recent JAMA research letter. And the share of the U.S. population spending six or more hours sedentary fell from nearly 55% to just over 35%. But the pandemic stopped the trend in its proverbial tracks. It's now been over five years since the pandemic put the world — and us — on pause. Gyms and parks are open again, but some vestiges of that time, like Zoom school and grocery delivery, never left. So where do things stand now? Are we on the move again or still stuck to the couch? We investigated. Experts credit one phrase for much of the trend. In 2014, leading obesity expert Dr. James Levine dubbed sitting 'the new smoking' in a research paper and then a book. He hypothesized that, with smoking prevalence down dramatically, sitting was now killing more people. Being too sedentary for too long raises risks for some of the most common life-threatening diseases in the U.S., including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, certain cancers and death from any cause. So Levine's phrase comparing sitting to smoking got a lot of attention from the press and from Americans themselves, Glenn Gaesser, professor of exercise physiology in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University, tells Yahoo. But Gaesser and Bethany Barone Gibbs, an epidemiologist who studies physical activity, are not entirely convinced that that attention actually translated to action. Because the subjects of the JAMA study documented their own sedentary time (rather than it being tracked by smartphone or another more accurate device), the experts wonder if the decline in sitting time was real. 'It could hopefully reflect a true population in what people were doing, but at the very least it might reflect an awareness that too much sitting is not good for [people],' driving them to report fewer hours spent sitting on their couch. According to the JAMA report, the average number of hours Americans spent sitting each day stayed about the same even after the world began to reopen. During the period between 2017 and 2020, people were spending 5.9 hours a day sedentary. 'I'm not surprised at all to see that the [declining sedentary time] trend did not continue after the pandemic,' says Barone Gibbs. 'During the initial lockdown period, there was just nothing to do; people couldn't leave their home and sat around a lot.' It's hardly surprising that activity decreased amid lockdowns. But by July 2021, the majority of the country was open with few restrictions, according to the New York Times. By April 2023, the national state of emergency due to COVID was officially declared over. Yet from 2021 to 2023, the amount of time Americans were sedentary remained stable at six hours, the JAMA report suggests. 'I think there have been some behavioral changes in the way that we do things and some technological advances, during work and leisure time, that are contributing to more sitting,' says Barone Gibbs. Zoom school and meetings were the new normal amid lockdowns, but they have stayed the norm for some students — especially those in college and higher education — and white-collar workers. Spending on food delivery shot up amid the pandemic and never fell back down. Office commutes and grocery trips that once represented opportunities for incidental exercise became unnecessary inconveniences, notes Barone Gibbs. It wasn't so much the pandemic but the technology, which became prevalent during lockdowns, that has changed our sitting habits and physical activity, she suspects. There isn't much data about physical activity or sedentary time after 2023 yet. But neither Gaesser nor Barone Gibbs think much has changed since. 'Getting the average time spent sitting below six hours 'is probably not going to be achievable,' says Gaesser. 'We live in a sedentary society where most people's jobs [involve] a lot of sitting.' However, there are some promising signs that people may be getting back to more active lifestyles. In 2024, a record 25% of Americans ages 6 and older belonged to gyms, health clubs or fitness studios, according to data from the Health & Fitness Association. But there's a wrinkle to that good news, says Barone Gibbs: The people who can afford those memberships aren't the ones most at risk of the health problems associated with too much sedentary time. 'The people we're really worried about are the ones who are lower income and don't have flexibility in their job [to find time to work out]; they don't have that kind of luxury,' says Barone Gibbs. It's ultimately a highly personal question. For Washington, it was a personal tragedy that spurred him to change course. Washington's father had multiple health issues, including stomach cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes, he says. When his father died in November 2022, 'it was a wake-up call,' Washington says. 'He had a lot of health problems, and considering my own weight and that I had high blood pressure at the time, I felt like something had to change.' Washington started educating himself about better nutrition. He quit sugar and fatty foods 'cold turkey,' and started hitting the gym two or three times a week, eventually increasing his workouts to six or seven times a week. In less than two years, Washington was down to 180 pounds. 'It was really hard considering that I didn't have many examples when it came to losing weight,' he says. 'After a while, you're able to grasp that fact that you're bettering yourself; once you're ingesting good food and moving around feeling your heart pumping, your sweat dripping and knowing the [excess] fat is slipping away — that's the motivation and the goal.' Experts say it doesn't necessarily take a life-altering event to get moving, but it's important to find your individual motivation and the activities that work for you. For starters, both Barone Gibbs and Gaesser point out that it's not just about sitting less but a matter of moving more. 'If you have a person that is a couch potato and doesn't do any physical activity and you ask what would improve the health of that person: Sit an hour less a day, or increase physical activity to meet the minimum; there's no question that they would have much bigger benefits from physical activity,' Gaesser says. So rather than opt for a standing desk, try to incorporate daily walks into your routine. You don't have to start living at the gym — in fact it's probably more sustainable (and affordable) to just add movement to your day-to-day life, such as walking. Or try taking short breaks from work to do some "exercise snacks." Or maybe you want to unsubscribe from your grocery delivery service and start going to the grocery store. 'Figure out ways to make walking purposeful and meaningful and find ways to get more movement in across the day,' says Barone Gibbs.
Medscape
30-06-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Sharp Obesity Increase Since Pandemic in Black Youth
A report comparing childhood obesity prevalence before the COVID pandemic and since the height of the pandemic shows a dramatic rise in the numbers for Black children and Black adolescents with obesity. Findings were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers, led by Michael Liu, MD, MPhil, with the Center for Outcomes Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, found that overall, the prevalence of obesity didn't change significantly. Prevalence was 20.3% from January 2011 to March 2020, when COVID shutdowns began, and rose to 22.0% from August 2021 to August 2023. But after accounting for secular trends, 'no overall increase in obesity prevalence was seen during the pandemic relative to the pre-pandemic period (adjusted difference, 0.52 percentage points; 95% CI, 2.3-3.3 percentage points). Pandemic-related increases in obesity prevalence were observed only in Black children and adolescents, the authors wrote, for whom rates were 22.4% in the decade before the pandemic and 35% in the 2 years after the height of COVID. Racial Disparities Clear Now, 'In the US, more than in 1 in 3 Black youth, more than 1 in 4 Hispanic youth, nearly 1 in 5 White youth, and 1 in 10 Asian youth currently meet the criteria for obesity,' the authors reported. Prevalence of severe obesity overall and across all subgroups remained stable between 2011 and August 2023. Researchers used serial cross-sectional data from the 2011 to August 2023 survey cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and included 17,507 children aged 2-11 years and adolescents aged 12-19 years. Height and weight from in-person examinations were used to calculate BMI. Obesity in this study was defined as a BMI at or above the age- and sex-specific 95th percentile according to the CDC growth charts. Severe obesity was defined as a BMI of 120% or more of the 95th percentile. Addressing Underlying Factors The next step is to address the factors that have led to the disparities documented in this report through public health and policy interventions, Therese F. Anderson, MD, assistant professor of family medicine at Mayo College of Medicine in Jacksonville, Florida, told Medscape Medical News . She pointed out the authors discuss multiple factors that have contributed to an increase in obesity during the COVID-19 pandemic and thereafter, including disruption in daily routines with school closures and reduced access to structured exercise and activity, leading to increased screen time and sedentary behaviors. Mealtimes were disrupted, and there was more reliance on ultraprocessed foods. 'Studies thus far have shown that Black and minority youth were disproportionately impacted due to higher rates of food insecurity, lower neighborhood resources — such as access to parks and safe spaces for exercise — as well as increased economic stress during the pandemic,' she noted. Anderson said these new numbers add support for policies and funding in areas such as improvement of access to healthy foods, expansion of food assistance programs, incentives to build grocery stores in food deserts, and promotion of safe spaces for activity. Medicaid Coverage for GLP-1s 'Additionally, expanding state Medicaid programs to fund weight management programs as well as medications like GLP-1s [glucagon-like peptide-1s], which are FDA approved for age 12 and up, are potential avenues for improvement. Currently, there are only 13 states with coverage for GLP-1s under Medicaid,' Anderson said. Pediatricians have an important role in addressing childhood obesity, she said. First, she said, is promoting family-based approaches to lifestyle modifications, such as healthy meals and family exercise. 'Secondly, we need to continue to advocate for policy changes as they impact the health of Black and minority youth. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics is urging lawmakers to reject funding cuts to Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP),' she said. 'Lastly, we need to familiarize ourselves with new interventions as they are emerging, such as telehealth and medications like GLP-1s.' Financial disclosures for authors are available with the full article. Anderson reported having no relevant financial relationships.
Bloomberg
27-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
MAGA Doesn't Mean Making Profits Great Again
Save To get John Authers' regular newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here. Corporate America's profits are slipping. Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis confirmed that corporate post-tax profits dropped in the first quarter by 3.3% — by far their biggest fall since the pandemic.
