Recession Taking Toll of Once-Booming O.C. : 1992 Survey: Residents’ median income has declined. Jobs, economy replace traffic as main concern.

With new layoffs in defense, aerospace and banking set to prolong Orange County’s worst recession since World War II, jobs and the state of the once-booming economy have replaced traffic as the most serious concern of county residents, according to the 1992 Orange County Annual Survey.

For the first time in the 11-year history of the countywide survey, the median household income of respondents has declined, from $49,000 in 1991 to $45,000 this year, illustrating the impact of the protracted recession in a county that has known mostly boom times during the last two decades.

Another telling sign that people are hurting financially is that charitable giving, which historically has lagged in Orange County behind the rest of the nation, has dipped to the lowest levels in six years, according to the survey released Monday.

“The county is at a critical time in its history,” said UC Irvine Prof. Mark Baldassare, co-director with UCI research associate Cheryl Katz of the telephone poll of 1,012 adults between Aug. 26 and Sept. 2.

“Orange County has literally gone from boom to bust in the past couple of years,” Katz said.

“Orange County residents are having difficult times . . . and there are some fundamental shifts in attitudes occurring because the recession has been dragging on for far longer than anyone expected,” added Baldassare, chairman of UCI’s program in urban and regional planning. “We are coming off a decade in which there was tremendous economic expansion. . . . We’ve gone from steady job growth and income growth in the 1980s to recession and stagnation. We are now headed into our third year of recession.”

Also gaining ground is a negative attitude about the quality of life in Orange County, that widespread perception that the county has been a relative paradise, immune from the social and economic ills of its neighboring counties. A full 40% of respondents now say things are going “badly,” up from 13% when the question was first asked in 1987 and a little more than 30% last year. Only 8% of those polled said things are “going very well,” down from 37% in 1987.

While about half--52%--of respondents said they believe things are going “somewhat well,” their opinions were evenly divided on perceptions about the county’s future. Thirty-two percent said they believe the county will be a better place to live in the future, while 32% said it will be a worse place. Another 36% said they believed things would remain about the same.

As pessimism about the economy and the future has increased, concern over environmental problems has dropped. Whereas environmental problems were cited as a “very serious concern” of 60% of respondents two years ago, only 48% surveyed this year felt the same.

And 48% said they would not accept higher unemployment to protect the environment.

“It means that the environment is taking a back seat to the economy,” Katz said.

The annual survey, which has a margin of error of 3%, has been conducted for the past 11 years in an effort to track shifts in attitudes and population characteristics of county residents, as well as to study their perceptions about economic, social and political issues. The survey was conducted on weekend days and weekday evenings, using a computer-generated sample of random telephone numbers spread across the county, the pollsters said. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish as necessary.

The survey was funded by contributions from 32 Orange County public agencies, private foundations and corporations, including the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition, Pacific Bell, Disneyland, Carl Karcher Enterprises and the Orange County Register. The cities of Santa Ana and Irvine, the County of Orange and the Orange County Transportation Authority also supported the research.

For more than a decade, traffic and transportation problems have dominated as the leading concern of respondents to the annual countywide survey. This year, traffic was cited by 14% of respondents as the county’s most important public policy concern, behind jobs and the economy, which were cited as the top problem by 26% of those surveyed, and crime, which was tapped as the biggest issue by 17%. Another 13% of those surveyed said schools were the most important public issue facing county residents.

In part, residents are seeing some movement toward relieving traffic congestion with the numerous freeway and road construction projects being funded by Measure M, the countywide transportation sales tax measure passed by voters a few years ago.

“It’s harder to get people excited about transportation issues than it was in the past,” Baldassare said. “I think people are happy to see the construction occurring, maybe as much because of the jobs they are creating as the traffic improvements they will provide.”

In the 1980s, Orange County jobs grew by about 40%--or 350,000 jobs, and actually outpaced population growth of about 24% for the decade. In the first two years of this decade, the county lost jobs--75,000--showing that the economy had not just gone stagnant, but had actually lost ground, the survey said.

“Thus, not only has an era of rapid expansion come to an end, but the economy so far in the 1990s has . . . mostly (gone) in reverse,” Baldassare said.

Only 19% of those surveyed rated the county’s economy as “excellent” or “good,” while 52% described it only as “fair.” Less than half--46%--think the economy will improve during the next two years, and 59% said they worried about money “very often” or “fairly often.”

Such concerns have had a predictable impact on consumer confidence among Orange County residents. Only 35% say they are better off financially in 1992 than in 1991, and only 48% say this is a good time to make major purchases, such as a house or car.

“There are a lot of people who expect things to remain the same or not improve very much, and they are basing their consumer behavior on the expectation that things are not going to get better,” Baldassare said.

And while such attitudes threaten to help prolong the recession, the professor said local residents are suffering from a very real decline in household income.

“For those who are homeowners, they’re watching their homes depreciate and they are nervously watching their employers for signs of downsizing,” Baldassare said. “People are reacting to very real circumstances, but I think the current experiences are clouding the future outlook. . . . In a lot of ways, we’re having hard times right now, but Orange County is still in position to be a major economic center in the future.”

Baldassare cited the county’s growing computer and biomedical industry as an example of how well-positioned the county is for an economic comeback. And its large Asian and Latino populations will help the county benefit from free-trade agreements with Mexico and any normalization of diplomatic and trade relations that may occur with Vietnam.

“Our prospects look pretty good, certainly much better than those areas of the country that don’t have those strengths,” he said.

In fact, many of those polled do see the future engine for the Orange County economy in high technology. Nearly two-thirds of those polled cited computers and electronics as the most important industries in the county’s future, while 58% cited biomedicine and biotechnology.

It’s just that they remain pessimistic about improvements to their own financial situations.

Housing costs have remained largely unchanged this year from last, according to survey respondents. The median monthly mortgage payment of those surveyed is $900, up only slightly from $870 last year. Median monthly rental payments are about $720, down from $730 last year. But while eight in 10 of those renters surveyed said they hoped to own a home one day, four in 10 think this is unlikely, despite the steep drop in mortgage interest rates that real estate industry experts had hoped would jump-start stagnant home sales.

“Many people said they feel their chances of becoming homeowners are more elusive than they were a few years ago,” Katz said. “People are more fearful about their own finances and they are very insecure about making long-term investments. They have very real fears about their own job security.”

1992: A TOUGH YEAR IN O.C. / Worrisome Days In Paradise

Prolonged recession has changed economic attitudes and behavior in Orange County. Combined with the first drop in median household income in more than a decade, jobs and the economy now rank as the county’s most important issue. Money is an increasing cause for concern, and as income has dropped, charitable giving has gone down. The percentage of residents who are “very satisfied” with their financial situation has been nearly halved since 1982. Most important issues: Jobs, economy: 26% Crime: 17% Traffic: 14% Schools: 13% Growth: 11% Immigration: 10% Housing: 9% First drop in median household income: (In thousands) 1982: $29 1992: $45 Those “very satisfied” with finances drop: 1982: 30% 1991: 21% 1992: 17% Worries about money:

1986 1992 Very often 14% 26% Fairly often 28% 33% Not often 58% 41%

Annual median charitable contributions plummet: 1987: $262 1988: $182 1989: $285 1990: $223 1991: $229 1992: $146 Source: Orange County Annual Survey, UC Irvine

O.C.’s Quality of Life

How Orange County residents responded in the latest annual UC Irvine survey:

Most serious social problem:

1991 1992 Drug abuse 35% 25% Health care 24% 24% Homelessness 14% 20% Child care 11% 10% AIDS 5% 9% Race relations 7% 8% Other 4% 4%

*

Local economy seen as weak, but likely to improve. Shape of the economy: This year Excellent: 1% Good: 18% Fair: 52% Poor: 28% Don’t know: 1% In two years Much better: 8% Somewhat better: 38% Same: 33% Somewhat worse: 13% Much worse: 3% Don’t know: 5% *

Will Orange County be:

Better place Worse place No to live to live change 1987 26% 54% 20% 1988 35% 38% 27% 1989 28% 47% 25% 1990 29% 44% 27% 1991 25% 47% 28% 1992 32% 32% 36%

*

Threat of environmental problems to well-being, health is:

1990 1992 Very serious 60% 48% Somewhat serious 31% 35% Not too serious 8% 16% Don’t know 1% 1%

*

Would residents support higher unemployment to protect environment? Yes: 42% No: 48% Don’t know: 10% *

Satisfaction with financial situation has eroded:

1982 1992 Very satisfied 30% 17% Somewhat satisfied 52% 50% Somewhat dissatisfied 12% 22% Very dissatisfied 6% 11%

Source: Orange County Annual Survey, UCI