Unemployed Residents Research Articles

The Effect of Employment Status in Postdisaster Recovery: A Longitudinal Comparative Study Among Employed and Unemployed Affected Residents.

Population studies have shown that employed adults are healthier than unemployed adults. In this study, we examined whether this “healthy worker effect” is relevant in postdisaster mental health by examining whether trauma‐exposed employed individuals have lower postdisaster initial mental health problems and/or whether they recover faster than trauma‐exposed unemployed individuals. We compared the course of postevent intrusion and avoidance reactions, anxiety, depression, and sleeping difficulties of employed residents (n = 291) and unemployed residents (n = 269) affected by a fireworks disaster in a residential area of Enschede, The Netherlands. Measurements took place at 2–3 weeks (T1), 18 months (T2), and 4 years (T3) postdisaster. We used linear mixed‐effect models to examine the course of mental health problems. Employment status was relevant, to a degree, in posttrauma recovery; although affected employed residents had significantly lower levels of mental health problems (initially and over time) than the unemployed, ds = 0.41–0.72, the recovery rate was the same for both groups. At T1 (neglecting the DSM 1‐month criterion), T2, and T3, the prevalence of probable posttraumatic stress disorder was 45.4%, 18.9%, and 11%, respectively, among employed individuals, and 70.1%, 32.5%, and 30% among unemployed individuals. We concluded that research into the mental health of disaster victims should take employment status into account. Regarding postdisaster care, unemployed individuals may need special attention; although they may recover at the same rate as employed individuals, they suffer from more severe mental health problems, even years after the disaster.

Association of health literacy with type 2 diabetes mellitus self-management and clinical outcomes within the primary care setting of Iran.

This study explores the potential association of health literacy with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) self-management and clinical outcomes in the primary care setting of Iran. A total of 347 T2DM patients, mostly female (52.4%), 50 years old or younger (63.1%), unemployed (53.6%) and rural residents (55.6%) participated in this study. Most of the respondents had type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) for 2-5 years (63.1%) and did not receive any T2DM education (52.2%). Approximately 19.0% were hospitalised due to uncontrolled T2DM. Participants mainly found managing T2DM self-management behaviours difficult. Approximately half of the participants had poor fasting blood sugar (FBS) (47.0%) and haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) (59.4%) control and were overweight or obese (77.6%). The level of health literacy was poor and most of the participants had difficulties reading hospital materials (66.0%), understanding medical materials (62.5%) and engaging in medical conversations (63.7%). Health literacy could predict 22.5% variance in difficulty of T2DM self-management and 3.8-23.3% variance in T2DM clinical outcomes after controlling for sociodemographic factors. Participants with higher health literacy were more likely to find managing T2DM less challenging and their clinical outcomes were within the normal range. This implies that interventions targeting patient's health literacy can be a promising tool for addressing the burden of T2DM.

Public transit fare structure and social vulnerability in Montreal, Canada

Research on social equity pertaining to transportation typically addresses how residents in a region have access to desirable destinations. Nonetheless, little is known about how public transit fare structures relate to social equity concerns. Some transit agencies charge more for fewer rides—weekly fares often cost more per ride than unlimited monthly fares, though monthly fares cost more upfront. For some social groups, in particular low-income earners, purchasing monthly passes may place a burden on their budget, and influence them to buy weekly passes instead. In this study, we analyze transit fare purchases of total monthly, weekly, and three or more weekly passes during the month of September 2014 in Montreal, Canada. We discovered that fare vendors in neighborhoods with low median household income and/or with a high proportion of unemployed residents are predicted to sell more weekly fares than vendors in neighborhoods with high household income and low rates of unemployment. Monthly fare purchases were not dependent on income or unemployed residents. Moreover, using smartcard data to track individual fare cards, we found that recurring purchases of three or more weekly passes depend on income and unemployment, so neighborhoods with socially vulnerable individuals are predicted to have more riders purchasing multiple weekly fares than socially secure neighborhoods. Our findings indicate that individuals residing in marginalized neighborhoods are likely to spend more money on transit fares over the course of a month compared to those residing in wealthy neighborhoods. These findings raise concerns regarding the financial burden that the existing fare structure in the city of Montreal imposes, especially on low-income groups. The methodology and findings from this study provide insight for transport planners, particularly those concerned with providing an equitable public transit system.

Age or health status: which influences medical insurance enrollment greater?

BackgroundThe New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) for peasantries implemented in 2003 and the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) for the urban unemployed implemented in 2007 have many similarities. They both apply the financing mode of individual premiums plus government’s subsidies, and the voluntary enrollment. The Chinese government plans to integrate these two systems and build a unified basic medical insurance system for the unemployed in order to achieve the medical equity and increase the general health level. Thus, to analyze the main influencing factors of the enrollment of the urban unemployed and rural residents is very important for improving the system and securing the stability of the system during the transition.MethodsThe study uses data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) and adopts logistic regression models to test which factors influence the enrollment of the URBMI and the NCMS under the background of rather high enrollment rate of Chinese basic medical insurances and strong fiscal support of the Chinese government, especially whether health status or age influences enrollment of these two insurances greater.ResultsThere is indeed some adverse selection in the URBMI and the NCMS. Whether the individual has chronic diseases have significant influence on enrollments of both the urban unemployed and rural residents, while whether the individual got ill in last four weeks just influences enrollments of the urban unemployed. Age influences enrollment greater than health status. The older the insured are, the larger the enrollment rates are.ConclusionBecause of the active support for basic medical insurances of the Chinese government, the enrollment performance of the urban unemployed and rural residents has already changed. When implementing the new policy, the government should pay attention to the willingness to enroll in and the change of enrollment performance of the insured. Therefore, under the policy of voluntary enrollment, every coordinated province and city should enlarge the proportion of young people to insuring group, optimizing the age structure, and the financing proportion of governments and individuals should be measured properly. With the increasing of governments’ subsidies, the proportion of individual’s premiums should also be increased.

Tourism intensity impact on satisfaction with life of German residents

Tourism researchers as well as policy makers are interested in knowing the impact of tourism on residents’ life. Recent studies address this issue by looking at residents’ quality of life measures. These studies, however, are based on convenience sample with investigation that is usually limited to one single destination at a given point of time. Socioeconomic characteristics of individuals have strong effect on the perception of tourism impact. In the present study, we investigate the impact of tourism intensity on residents’ satisfaction with life using the theoretical framework of the bottom-up spillover theory. The analysis is based on a representative socioeconomic panel of German households over a period from 2000 to 2011. The analysis conducted involves the whole country distinguishing tourism destinations at administrative districts level. The empirical models suggest that tourism intensity and well-being of employed and unemployed residents present nonlinear U-shaped relationship. For low tourism intensities, residents’ well-being is weakly affected while for higher intensities, the positive effect is stronger.

Are neighbourhoods dynamic or are they slothful? The limited prevalence and extent of change in neighbourhood socio-economic status, and its implications for regeneration policy

ABSTRACTThis article describes what we know about neighbourhood change, and regeneration policy intended to encourage it, using the example of the past 15 years in England. Then it introduces new data on unemployed and middle-class residents as a proportion of all residents in all neighbourhoods in England and Wales over the periods 1985–2005 and 2001–2011. Neighbourhoods are generally slothful rather than dynamic. Thus, we should expect significant change for significant numbers of neighbourhoods only over the long term, and longer time periods than standard for regeneration policy time. This provides important new context for policymaking and evaluation. In this context, we could see the best of neighbourhood regeneration as remarkably successful in creating measureable change against the odds, and as a very valuable part of public policy. Alternatively, we could also see neighbourhood regeneration policy as generally doomed to fail to transform the relative position of neighbourhoods, and as not worth pursuing.

Transnational spaces of exclusion in Glasgow: multi-story, photography and spatial practices

In 2000, the city of Glasgow signed a contract with the British government to house up to 2000 asylum seekers a year in what were considered some of the most notorious council estates across the city. These estates have some of the highest levels of deprivation in the United Kingdom and have been abandoned as zones of violence, antisocial behaviour and crime and are viewed by many policymakers as beyond rehabilitation. This is where thousands of women, men and children from conflict zones across the world have been assigned accommodations while their refugee claims are assessed. This article examines Multi-Story, Street Level Photoworks’ online archive of art projects made by asylum seekers in Red Road housing estate in Glasgow. Following de Certeau, the article examines these projects as ‘tactics’, spatial practices that produce temporary spaces of dwelling in what the article argues are layered extraterritorial transnational spaces of exclusion that include both generations of unemployed Scottish residents and asylum seekers belonging to global networks of displacement. The article draws on Lefebvre’s ideas about ‘representational space’ to examine how the asylum seekers’ photographs and videos create possibilities to ‘think differently’ about what have been abandoned as ‘degenerate’ spaces of exclusion. As the article argues, the temporal dimension of multi-story as an online archive is significant, pointing out how it operates as a graveyard and as a memorial that works as a place-making practice long after many of the asylum seekers have been deported or left the building, incorporating their presence in the social and emotional landscape of the city against the discourses and legal mechanisms that exclude them.

Narrowing Pathways? Exploring the Spatial Dynamics of Postsecondary STEM Preparation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This paper explores geographical factors associated with the postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) preparation of students from underrepresented groups in the School District of Philadelphia from middle to high school during 2008 and 2011. We analyze Pennsylvania state assessment data for mathematics in conjunction with data from the American Community Survey using correlation analysis, cluster analysis, ordinary least squares regression, and geographically-weighted regression. Our analyses find strong relationships among math performance, a key indicator of college readiness for courses of study in STEM, and neighborhood factors within school catchment areas. For example, high percentages of unemployed residents are negatively correlated to math performance, while high median household income is positively correlated with math performance. These relationships vary spatially across middle and high school catchment areas. The results of this research can foster discussions about school reform towards more nuanced, spatially-informed STEM policies that focus on improving the educational outcomes of students who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields, particularly for those youth living in economically disadvantaged communities.

The willingness to intervene in problematic neighbourhood situations: A comparison of local entrepreneurs and (un‐)employed residents

AbstractBy emphasising that businesses attract offenders or generate ‘eyes on the street’ discouraging potential offenders, previous studies have largely neglected the active role of local business owners. As neighbourhood business owners have both individual and professional local stakes, they may take responsibility for a place and its immediate surroundings. Using a dataset of 895 residents and 385 entrepreneurs nested within 161 residential neighbourhoods, we show that local business owners are more willing to intervene in disorderly situations than unemployed residents. The findings suggest that this is caused by them having both higher expectations about intervention by others and greater belief in their own problem‐solving capabilities. We speculate that although entrepreneurs only report higher willingness than unemployed residents but not employed residents, their presence may nevertheless influence neighbourhood order because they spend much time locally and thus have many opportunities to turn their willingness into action on behalf of the neighbourhood.

The transformative effect of the introduction of water volumetric billing in a disadvantaged housing area in Sweden

Domestic water payment schemes are often a product of their time, place and what is perceived to be customary. Aspects that payment schemes can take into account include resource conservation, equity, maintainability, and profitability. In contemporary Sweden profitable environmentally sustainable solutions are promoted, such as the introduction of volumetric billing of water in rental apartments. This paper describes the detailed consequences of this change in the payment structure for domestic water in terms of reduced resource consumption, direct impact on household economies and perceptions of the system's change process. By combining high-resolution quantitative data on water usage and socio-economic household characteristics with qualitative data from semi-standardized interviews with residents, it is possible to identify the different impacts of the system's change and how the process was experienced. It was shown that while water usage decreased by 30%, 63% of the households had increased monthly costs, and unemployed residents were further disadvantaged and closer to social exclusion. Focusing on making environmental sustainability profitable, as posited in ecological modernization theory, may shadow negative impacts on social sustainability.

Establishing Worker Cooperatives in Low-income Neighborhoods: An Action Research Project

The purpose of this research was to begin to develop a model in which underemployed and unemployed residents of a low- income area can come together to form worker cooperatives. This action research project focused on one low-income neighborhood. The participatory action research team members included the student investigator, three members of a non-profit organization focused on employee ownership education, and an appreciative inquiry consultant. The project consisted of four cycles incorporating discovery, dream, measureable actions, reflection, and actionable knowledge. The main questions this research addressed were to identify and refine a process in which people come together, identify their individual and collective strengths, determine business needs, and put actionable plans in place to form worker cooperatives. The major stakeholders in this project were the individuals who will form the worker cooperative, the communities in which they serve, and the cities where the businesses exist. Time constraints were realized for this project as it relates to course deliverables; however, the team is committed to following through with the project to ensure that the model works to create at least one worker cooperative. Several small action research projects are envisioned to produce a comprehensive model for establishing worker cooperatives in low-income neighborhoods with the intention of replicating the model across the United States. The contribution expected from this action research supports effective action consistent with the student investigator’s intentions to utilize appreciative inquiry methods in organizational development to help businesses be more sustainable environmentally, socially, and economically.

Economists Versus the Street: Comparative Viewpoints on Barriers to Self-Employment in Khayelitsha, South Africa

What prevents the unemployed in Khayelitsha, South Africa from trying self-employment? Perceptions of a small group of academic economists are presented and compared to the perceptions of unemployed Khayelitsha residents themselves. The largest differences in view-points are that a) academics believe that the general business skills of residents hold the unemployed back substantially while residents perceive it as a minor issue; and b) compared to academics, residents of Khayelitsha give much more weight to jealousy within the community and to the continual vulnerability to business failure as barriers to trying self-employment.

Does misery love company? Civic engagement in economic hard times

We examine how economic hardship affects civic engagement. Using the Roper Political and Social Trends data, we show that the unemployed were less civically engaged throughout the period covered in the data (1973–1994). The gap in civic engagement between the employed and the unemployed is stable throughout the period. We find little evidence that national economic recession affects the overall level of civic engagement. We do find that higher state unemployment is positively related to political participation for both employed and unemployed residents, especially for political partisans. Finally, we find a strong and negative relationship between state-level income inequality and civic engagement. Our findings suggest that in terms of civic engagement: (1) the state-level economic context matters more than the national context; (2) economic recession may affect political and non-political civic participation differently; (3) economic inequality, rather than economic hardship, appears more negatively to impact civic engagement.

Mediated Moderation or Moderated Mediation: Relationship between Length of Unemployment, Resilience, Coping and Health

The aim of the present research was to evaluate a model of mediated moderation vs. moderated mediation that could explain the relationship between length of unemployment, dispositional resilience, coping styles and depression and social functioning of Venezuelan unemployed individuals. Self-report measures were administered to a sample of 328 unemployed residents in Caracas, Venezuela. Results indicated that emotional coping acted as a mediator in the relationship between resilience and depression. Individuals with greater resilience used more detachment coping when unemployment was longer, while individuals with poorer resilience in the same situation used less avoidance coping. Resilience acted as a protective moderating factor between longer periods of unemployment and social functioning, a process mediated by detachment coping. Overall, results supported a mediated moderation model, with resilience as the moderating factor and coping as the mediator in the relation between stress due to the length of unemployment and well-being.

Pre-Apprenticeship Urban Workforce Training Programs

Over the past two decades, inner-city communities have witnessed double-digit joblessness among an increasing number of residents who are relegated to the status of the unemployed or the permanent underclass (O'Regan & Conway, 1993). These residents cannot hope to be competitive in a changing and evolving labor market. Relying on public assistance, low-wage part-time work without benefits, and struggling through spells of unemployment, these residents scuffle to survive during economically successful years and they are the last to experience long-term employment with family sustaining wages during an economic recovery. Particularly problematic for residents of inner-city communities is finding employment opportunities that pay well, and which cannot be exported to suburban communities, other states, or other countries. Although highly sensitive to economic boom and bust cycles, construction jobs offer this opportunity. However, in many urban settings, these jobs are controlled largely by unions, wherein membership is still highly evasive for people of color. Since the 1990s several federal, state, local and community-based initiatives emerged to meet the employment readiness needs of these residents and others through comprehensive training. While adult education and training efforts are recognized as important to the future employment endeavors of these residents; the designers of the intervention programs do not seem to view theoretically-based adult education and training as a central concern. Further, the adult education literature does not contain a critical lens on the quality of these programs. Therefore, we do not know the extent to which these education and training intervention programs employ theoretically-based adult education approaches. Nor do we know the extent to which they create opportunities for the unemployed, undereducated, and low-income residents of these communities to obtain the appropriate knowledge, skills, and attitudes to enter (or reenter) the workforce and earn family sustaining wages. The purpose of this article is therefore to begin to fill this void by providing an adult education theory-based critical analysis of published case evaluations of three very different pre-apprenticeship workforce training programs. The programs include the Newark/Essex Construction Careers Consortium (N/ECCC) (Mabe, 2007), the Building Bridges Project (BBP) Night Class, and the BBP Carpenters Class (Worthen & Hayes, 2009). Composites and Analysis of Three Pre-Apprenticeship Training Programs In this section, we provide a composite of key elements of the case analyses found in the literature. Immediately following each of the key elements of the composites, we analyze the programs by using adult education literature and theories to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the program components. Planning the Program Each case included approaches to planning the program which included a sharp focus on a targeted clientele, key stakeholders and partnerships with other organizations, and distinct funding sources. Targeted Clientele--each program sought to provide pre-apprenticeship training program opportunities to hard-to-employ low-income residents (i.e., unemployed and underemployed adults, individuals who have been convicted and served time in jail, youth, previous drug and alcohol abusers, and others) for employment in the building and construction industry as members of trade unions (Mabe, 2007; Worthen & Hayes, 2009). Stakeholders and Partnerships--stakeholders and partners included unions, consortiums of local organizations, local and state-level government, and community-based agencies. Funding--all of the programs were funded primarily from state sources; however, this funding was supplemented by donations and other grant sources. For example, the N/ECCC program had an annual budget of $600,000; however, a state grant provided about $450,000 on average. …

Employment and Development Centres in Malmö

The city of Malmo in southern Sweden has implemented an intergovernmental employment programme aimed at moving long-term unemployed residents into the labour market. Working between several levels ...

Quality of Life of Some Under-Represented Survey Respondents: Youth, Aboriginals and Unemployed

Examining an aggregated sample (N = 8800) of residents who responded to one of 16 surveys undertaken in Prince George, British Columbia in the period from November 1997 to February 2005, it was found that satisfaction with the quality of life of unemployed residents is lower than that of residents with Aboriginal backgrounds and that satisfaction with the quality of life of the latter is still lower than that of young people. Nevertheless, satisfaction with the quality of life of young people was significantly lower than that of the total sampled population, as well as that of the selected mid-life and retirement groups. Regarding predictors of our three global dependent variables (satisfaction with life as a whole and with the overall quality of life, and happiness) for the three groups (unemployed, Aboriginals and youth) and the total population, we found that the Aboriginal group was most different from all others. Satisfaction with one’s own self-esteem was the most influential predictor of each global indicator for every group except Aboriginal residents. For the latter, self-esteem satisfaction was only the strongest predictor of satisfaction with the overall quality of life. The strongest predictor of life satisfaction for the Aboriginal group was satisfaction with friendships, and there were two domain satisfaction scores tied (friendships and living partner) for most influential predictors of happiness. Self-esteem satisfaction ranked second in strength of influence on Aboriginal happiness and life satisfaction.

Charity and the "Tramp": Itinerancy, Unemployment, and Municipal Government from Coxey to the Unemployed League

DMITRI PALMATEER Charity and the "Tramp55 Itinerancy, Unemployment, and Municipal Government fromCoxey tothe UnemployedLeague What isa tramp? What a world ofmeaning isconveyedby the word "tramp!"Do you everstop to thinkof theseoutcastsofsociety? Do you everconsider what is thecause of theexistenceof theseoftendespised human beings? Doomed towalk fromplace toplace depending upon the charity of their brothers, can you conceive of a more miserable or humiliatingexistence? Friendless,horseless, forlorn,despised!Ah, thathumanitywould awaken from its lethargic state, and arouse to a true understanding of the "tramp" question! What a mockery tobeholda strong, able-bodiedwilling individual ina landof abundance seekinginvainfor an opportunitytowork tosustain life! ?Tacoma Sun, 1894 Up and down ourPacificCoast floats a motley band ofvagabonds. The criminal,the tramp, inmany cases thewandering, shiftless, working-man, make common protest against any useful laborand boycottitasfar as theycan. The resultis inevitable. The progress of the Coast Communities is retarded, and the men bring sorrow and poverty upon themselves and trouble and damage upon all they come in contact with. ? Thomas Strong, 1910address toAssociated Charities of Portland THE FORCES THAT ALTERED thelate-nineteenth-century Pacific North west landscape ? the rise of agribusiness, the expansion of the rail network, increased irrigation, technological advances in lumbering ? affectedmore than the regions ecology and economy. An army of itinerant laborers, only nominally tied to a particular place or occupation, was swept up into indus trial capitalism's westward expansion, which one historian has described as Research for thisarticlewas supported by the Oregon Historical Society'sDonald]. Sterling,Jr., Memorial Graduate Research Fellowship. OHQ vol. 107, no. 2 ? 2006 Oregon Historical Society The economyof theearly twentieth-century West reliedon a steadypool of migratoryworkers tiedneither toplace nor industry. By the1920s, itinerants increasinglytraveledbyautomobile. creating "aworld perpetually in the process of becoming, of reforming, and seemingly functioning (at times) on the edge of chaos."1 As the "great natu ral-resource reservoir" and "investment arena" forAmerican and European capital, the West was intimately connected to fluctuations in international markets, a situation that led to uncontrolled enthusiasm and expansion one moment and emptymining, construction, and logging camps the next. Itinerancy was a laborer's response to an economic system dominated by frequent bouts of unemployment and idleness, harsh working and living conditions, a cut-and-run mentality, and an uneven distribution of power. In other words, itinerancy was a creation as well as an individual response to the introduction of industrial capitalism in the Pacific Northwest.2 Dependent on these distant and frequently unstable markets, the regions dominant industries ? mining, lumbering, and agriculture ? could one moment draw thousands of job-seekers into a particular region and the next release thousands onto a job market with few alternatives other than continued unemployment or geographic relocation. Most of thesewestern Palmateer,Charity and the "Tramp" 229 industries were also seasonal innature, requiring massive amounts of labor in some seasons and needing far less in others. In confronting the region's unusual geography of labor mobility, workers had few options ? change their occupation, change their location, or bide their time living in one of the Pacific Northwest's emerging Skid Road districts.3 FACING LIMITED JOBPROSPECTS inhinterland work campsduring economic downturns, itinerant laborers ? predominantly single men, young, and native-born or from older immigrant families ? headed to the region's urban centers to find temporary employment, cheap accommoda tions, relief from dangerous and monotonous employment, and a wider variety of charity options. In these urban centers, the region's seasonally unemployed rubbed shoulders with the truly itinerant "tramps," the city's underemployed and laboring masses, and other denizens that serviced and preyed on laborers in the region's Skid Roads. Within this largelymale world, laborers and reformers were continually negotiating the construction of gender, class, sexual, and racial norms.4 In addition to providing affordable food and housing options, infor mal charity resources (such as free lunches), employment information, and places to sleep, cities such as Portland possessed an expanding formal charity network. Anxiety surrounding the impact of industrialization and urbanization on the supposedly staid and respectable communities of the region spurred municipalities to reflecton their responsibilities toward their unemployed and impoverished residents. Rather than viewing unemployment as a result of the region's economic structure, reformers, charity officers, and municipal authorities...

A Comparative Static Model of the Relationship between Immigration and the Short-Run Job Prospects of Unemployed Residents

A novel theoretical approach is developed to illustrate the consequences of immigration for the probability that unemployed residents gain a job. Through the use of the vacancies to unemployment ratio it is shown that immigration in theory can either increase or decrease unemployed residents' employment probabilities, but that--contrary to populist rhetoric--an increase is more likely the more recessed is the labour market. With reference to feasible Australian values of the parameters of interest, it is demonstrated that in practically all circumstances immigration increases the overall employment prospects of unemployed residents. Even so, the analysis is very short run, and strong conclusions as to what might be happening over the longer term are not appropriate.

A Comparative Static Model of the Relationship between Immigration and the Short‐Run Job Prospects of Unemployed Residents

A novel theoretical approach is developed to illustrate the consequences of immigration for the probability that unemployed residents gain a job. Through the use of the vacancies to unemployment ratio it is shown that immigration in theory can either increase or decrease unemployed residents' employment probabilities, but that, contrary to populist rhetoric, an increase is more likely the more recessed is the labour market. With reference to feasible Australian values of the parameters of interest, it is demonstrated that in practically all circumstances immigration increases the overall employment prospects of unemployed residents. Even so, the analysis is very short run, and strong conclusions as to what might be happening over the longer term are not appropriate.