Almost half (46.5%) of respondents reported that they were employed full-time and another 13.7% were employed part-time. Of the 36.4% of respondents who were not currently employed, 11.5% reported looking for work, while 18.1% reported being retired, and another 6.8% were not looking for work.
When asked whether they worked in or outside of the home, the majority of respondents (59.3%) reported only working outside of the home while 29.2% reported hybrid arrangements. About 15% spent most of their working time outside of the home with some remote work, 8% had an equal split, and 6.5% were mostly remote with some work outside of the home. Only 10.8% of respondents work fully remote jobs. About one in five respondents (20.7%) reported that they or someone in their household was employed by the federal government, as a federal contractor or active-duty military in the past 12 months.
When asking about employment changes, 11.3% of respondents reported that someone in their household had involuntarily lost a job, while 10% reported that someone in the household had voluntarily left a job and 11% reported that someone in their household had their working hours or workload reduced.
When asked about their current level of burnout at their job based on a scale of 0 to 10, 7.7% reported that they were completely burned out (10/10), while 14.7% reported not being burned out at all (0/10). The average rating was 4.6 out of 10 and 42.9% of respondents reported a score of 6 or higher.
As with quality of life, Hampton Roads residents were asked to rate the economic conditions in the region as well. When asked about the general economic conditions in the Hampton Roads region, more than half (51.3%) would describe them as good (45.4%) or excellent (5.9%), whereas 40.3% described economic conditions as fair, and 6.9% described them as poor.
Residents were then asked about their personal financial situation, and/or that of their household, as to whether it’s worse, better, or the same as one year ago. Almost half (47.3%) report their situation to be the same as one year ago, whereas 17.8% report their economic situation being better, and 34.9% report it being worse than one year ago.
Residents were again asked about their personal/household financial situation but instead asked to look to the future. They were asked to predict whether they would be financially better or worse off in a year, or the same. Most believed their situation will be the same in one year (42.5%), whereas 17.7% believe they will be worse off, and 39.8% believe they will be better off in one year.
To further understand residents’ outlooks on the economy and how they see it developing in the near future, respondents were asked to predict how business conditions in the country as a whole will be over the next year, whether good, bad, or a mix. Close to half (46.3%) believed that there would be a combination of good and bad business conditions over the next 12 months and about one-third (32%) believed that business conditions will be bad, while 21.8% believe business conditions will be good.
When asked to make a prediction for the economic conditions of the country as a whole over the next five (5) years or so, the answers were similar, with 50.4% predicting that there would be some good times and some bad times over the next 5 years, 31.2% predicting continuous bad times such as unemployment and economic depression, and 18.3% predicting continuous good times over the next five years.
Bringing the questions back to the present, 59.3% indicated that now is a bad time to make major household purchases such as appliances or furniture, while 40.2% believe that now is a good time for purchasing these items.
Residents were asked about their current housing arrangements and 52.3% reported owning their home or being in the process of buying a home of their own. More than 41% reported renting their home, and 6.2% reported another type of arrangement which may include arrangements such as staying with family.
Affordable housing has been a major concern for residents of Hampton Roads in recent years, and this is reflected in the fact that almost half of residents (48.7%) believe that housing in their neighborhood is either somewhat unaffordable (34%) or very unaffordable (14.7%) for people with a household income similar to theirs. Only about a third of residents (36.6%) consider their neighborhood to be somewhat affordable (28.9%) or very affordable (7.7%), while another 14.7% felt that their neighborhood was neither affordable nor unaffordable.
Generally, renters are more likely to report that housing in their neighborhood is affordable than those that own their home or are in the process of buying a home. About 41% (40.9%) of renters feel housing in their neighborhood to be somewhat or very affordable for those with a household income similar to theirs compared to only 35% (35.1%) of those who own or are in the process of buying their home. About 15% of both renters (14.4%) and homeowners (15.4%) feel housing in their neighborhood is neither affordable nor unaffordable.
Residents were also asked how much of a burden housing costs (e.g., rent or mortgage) place on their household budget. The largest proportion of respondents indicated that these types of costs place a moderate burden on their budget (39.8%), while nearly a third (32.8%) indicated that these are a major burden. Only 11.2% felt that these costs were no burden at all, while 16.3% indicated that housing costs are a minor burden.
Over 80% (82.2%) of renters feel as if housing costs place a moderate to major burden on their household budget. Notably, only about 65% (64.8%) of those who own their home or are in the process of buying a home feel the same. Less than 20% (17.8%) of renters feel as if housing costs place only a minor to no burden on their household budget, whereas more than one-third (35.2%) of homeowners or those in the process of buying feel the same.
Across Hampton Roads, 61-81% of all respondents reported moderate to major housing cost burden. Hampton has the highest share of respondents reporting moderate to major housing cost burden in Hampton Roads, with 80.9% responding this way. Newport News residents reported the lowest percentage of housing cost burden with 61.1% followed by Portsmouth (64.6%). About three-quarters of Norfolk (74.8%) and Virginia Beach (76.2%) residents report moderate to major housing cost burden as did 71.7% of respondents from Suffolk and 70.8% from Chesapeake.
