THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 24, 1995 TAG: 9509230266
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
Kathy Ward, a petite woman serving up eggs and toast behind the counter at Charlie's Cafe, paused thoughtfully before sharing her definition of ``middle class.''
``If you make enough money to pay your bills, you're middle class,'' said the bespectacled diner owner.
To many, middle class means being able to ``get by'' and enjoy an occasional luxury or indulgence. And Hampton Roads is flush with residents who fall into that broad economic category.
As in the rest of the country, the middle class in Hampton Roads is straining under the weight of corporate downsizing, federal cutbacks, the rising cost of living and the declining value of the dollar.
And because the region is viewed as solidly working class, there's a perception that Hampton Roads has been harder hit than other areas. When so much of the region falls between household income brackets of $25,000 and $70,000, a few ripples in the economic landscape move the entire population.
Norfolk native Ward thinks the overall status of the middle class has stayed the same in Hampton Roads. But she ticked off examples of how her standard of living has declined.
Whereas she and her friends all went to Catholic school, her son attends public school.
``I can't justify shelling out the big bucks for tuition'' when the Norfolk public schools give her son a fine education, she said. She called her house not the American Dream, but ``the American nightmare'' - thanks to ``the great American mortgage.''
Hampton Roads definitely mirrors the plight of the nation's middle class, said economist David Garraty, a professor at Virginia Wesleyan University.
``A portion of our middle class is in a declining industry,'' he said of shipyard workers. ``That's a big chunk of the working class, middle class on the Peninsula. They're having their economy chipped away.''
Americans without a college degree or higher education traditionally have used manufacturing jobs to get ahead. They could earn enough to support an entire family and live comfortably. But manufacturing jobs aren't as readily available anymore.
Newport News Shipbuilding, for instance, announced this week that it would trim 200 jobs. The shipyard's work force is about 19,200, down from a peak of 30,000 in 1985.
Lost shipyard and repair jobs in the region are not being replaced by jobs of similar pay. The majority of job openings are in the service or retail industries. It's steady work, but often pays close to minimum wage.
``Jobs for the middle class are increasingly becoming lower paying and more competitive,'' said Garraty, who administers a local index that gauges economic activity.
New retail outlets would not open if they did not have a customer base, said Michael Jacobs, president of The Lee Group, an executive search firm. The entry of Target, a full-service discount store chain similar to Wal-Mart, in the Patrick Henry mall area of the Peninsula signals that parts of the region are thriving, he said.
But Jacobs also suggests that the traditional middle class is disappearing.
``We're going more toward the haves and have nots,'' he said.
John Whaley, chief economist at the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, pointed out that the educational and intellectual elite have flourished while the people at the other end of the spectrum compete increasingly with natives of foreign countries.
And Hampton Roads' track record vs. the country isn't good.
Per capita income in the region is about 89 percent of the national average, according to studies by Whaley. That means Hampton Roads residents are paid less for the same industry job as their U.S. peers and they can buy less on their incomes than other Americans.
Meanwhile, it's getting more expensive to live in this region.
Average housing costs rose 12 percent in South Hampton Roads in the past four years, from $98,013 in 1990 to $109,958 in 1994. On the Peninsula, the costs of single-family houses are up 17 percent, from $95,299 in 1990 to $111,128 in 1994.
Reliance on the federal government makes the area more susceptible to ongoing national cutbacks.
``I would suspect that the middle class in Hampton Roads has been a little more stressed than the rest of the country,'' said Christopher Colburn, an economist at Old Dominion University. ``The reason I say that is things like the closing of NADEP (the Naval Aviation Depot) and our whole dependence on the military suggests that when there's one major downturn in one major sector, we're hurt by that.''
Although the middle class in Hampton Roads has absorbed the same shocks as as other military-dependent communities, the economic outlook for the region remains relatively upbeat.
``My own observation is this area has stayed pretty consistent,'' Jacobs said.
Household income has increased because more workers, mostly women, are entering the labor force, Whaley said.
``The difficulty the middle class is facing is, we've been raising our income the last 10 or 15 years in Hampton Roads not by raising our wages but by getting more and more people to work. That's not going to happen in the next 10 years,'' he said.
Men over 55 are retiring earlier. And women already account for a substantial portion of the labor force.
Bob Burge, a 39-year-old Marine Corps officer, attributed the sense of decline to a faster pace of life and the higher expectations Americans have from living in one of the world's most affluent countries.
``You've got people with higher expectations just by being raised in America,'' he said. ``The value system has changed. They expect more for less.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
STAFF
MEDIAN INCOME
Hampton Roads cities
SOURCE: Virginia Statistical Abstract, 1994-95 Edition; household
information for 1989.
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: MIDDLE CLASS by CNB