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Eastern Jackson County, MO —
Jackson County might adopt restrictions on pawn shops and payday lenders along the same lines as those in place in Independence, Blue Springs and Kansas City.
Legislator Crystal Williams, D-Kansas City, offered an ordinance to do that during the County Legislature’s first meeting of the year on Tuesday. The measure was assigned to a committee for possible action by the Legislature in the coming weeks.
The idea is to keep pawn shops, title loan companies and payday loan companies from clustering together. They could not be within 2,500 feet of each other; within 1,000 feet of a school, park, church, hospital, day care or public building; or within 500 feet of a home. Current businesses would not have to move, but if, for example, one pawn shop next door to another were to close, a new one could not go into that spot. The ordinance would apply to unincorporated areas of the county. Independence adopted a similar approach five years ago.
Williams said a clustering of those businesses leads to blight and, sometimes, crime. She said that was the case at one point around 39th Street and Main Street in Kansas City, not far from her Hyde Park home.
“And we would have long-time businesses flee,” she said.
Separately, a metro area group is looking at creating lower-interest alternatives to payday loans. Plus there’s a petition to ask Missouri voters to impose some limits.
“I have signed that petition, and I wholly support it,” Williams said.
Several attempts to rein in the industry have failed in the Missouri General Assembly, and Williams pointed out that the last time it was tried, the bill was assigned to a committee chaired by someone who owned one of those businesses.
“We can’t get anything through that legislature,” she said.
Kmart, Sears update
The Independence Sears and Kmart stores appear to be safe, so far, as the company that owns both retail chains has announced the first wave of store closings.
The Sears Grand on Missouri 291 in Lee’s Summit is the only metro store among 79 closings announced last week. The company says it is closing 100 to 120 of its 3,650 stores nationwide. The company has a Sears and two Kmarts in Independence.
Missouri still lagging
One barometer of the Midwestern economy suggests that neither Missouri nor the nine-state region in the middle of the country will be perking up in the coming months. In fact, by one broad measure Missouri is trailing the field.
Jackson County might adopt restrictions on pawn shops and payday lenders along the same lines as those in place in Independence, Blue Springs and Kansas City.
Legislator Crystal Williams, D-Kansas City, offered an ordinance to do that during the County Legislature’s first meeting of the year on Tuesday. The measure was assigned to a committee for possible action by the Legislature in the coming weeks.
The idea is to keep pawn shops, title loan companies and payday loan companies from clustering together. They could not be within 2,500 feet of each other; within 1,000 feet of a school, park, church, hospital, day care or public building; or within 500 feet of a home. Current businesses would not have to move, but if, for example, one pawn shop next door to another were to close, a new one could not go into that spot. The ordinance would apply to unincorporated areas of the county. Independence adopted a similar approach five years ago.
Williams said a clustering of those businesses leads to blight and, sometimes, crime. She said that was the case at one point around 39th Street and Main Street in Kansas City, not far from her Hyde Park home.
“And we would have long-time businesses flee,” she said.
Separately, a metro area group is looking at creating lower-interest alternatives to payday loans. Plus there’s a petition to ask Missouri voters to impose some limits.
“I have signed that petition, and I wholly support it,” Williams said.
Several attempts to rein in the industry have failed in the Missouri General Assembly, and Williams pointed out that the last time it was tried, the bill was assigned to a committee chaired by someone who owned one of those businesses.
“We can’t get anything through that legislature,” she said.
Kmart, Sears update
The Independence Sears and Kmart stores appear to be safe, so far, as the company that owns both retail chains has announced the first wave of store closings.
The Sears Grand on Missouri 291 in Lee’s Summit is the only metro store among 79 closings announced last week. The company says it is closing 100 to 120 of its 3,650 stores nationwide. The company has a Sears and two Kmarts in Independence.
Missouri still lagging
One barometer of the Midwestern economy suggests that neither Missouri nor the nine-state region in the middle of the country will be perking up in the coming months. In fact, by one broad measure Missouri is trailing the field.
The Creighton Economic Forecasting Group surveys purchasing managers at companies across the region to measure such factors as inventory, sales and prices. It then arrives at a business conditions index – 0 to 100 – and anything above 50 indicates growth ahead. The nine-state region in December was right at 50, the Creighton Group said Tuesday, down from a modest 52.6 in November.
Missouri showed improvement in December, rising to 49 from November’s 47.3. A couple of components of that score – production or sales, and delivery lead time – were in positive territory, but employment, inventories and new orders were not.
Notably, the Creighton Group said, wage gains at manufacturers have lagged behind those in other states in the region (Oklahoma. Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and Arkansas). The group even forecasts that the state will have a 0.7 percent loss of jobs in the state this year. The companies that make durable goods are doing well but can’t offset weakness among makers of nondurable goods and “value-added service firms.”
The Creighton Group also put Missouri dead last among the nine states in growth of gross domestic product in 2011 – and forecast the same for 2012. North Dakota, with its energy boom, leads the way, followed by Oklahoma and Nebraska.
Across the region, more than half of the purchasing managers said they expect higher sales in 2012. They also expected their companies to give raises of, on average, a weak 1.6 percent – but three in 10 said they expected no raises or even pay cuts in 2012.
The Creighton Group uses the same methodology that the National Institute for Supply Management uses at the national level, and that group on Tuesday put the U.S. barometer at 53.9, a slight gain from November. The nation’s economy grew for the 31st straight month. That’s every month since mid-2009, when the recession officially ended.
Fewer paychecks
There is more sobering news on the jobs front, however, at least looking back. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis says total compensation for jobs in Jackson County fell 1.9 percent, from $22.59 billion in 2009 to $22.15 billion in 2010, despite the average compensation per job rising from $59,108 to $59,768.
Johnson County, Kan., saw a 2.9 percent gain in average compensation, to $59,727 in 2010, though total compensation was $19.07 billion, up 1.4 percent.
Both counties were roughly in the middle of the pack among the nation’s 170 largest counties.
