Checking in on Charlotte’s economy
Plus: Looking back at Bokhari's tenure; Tax deadline extended to September; American to offer free wifi; Catholic churches to open tonight after pope's death; Libraries closed through Tuesday
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Q&A: Economist Mark Vitner on the economy’s warning signs, the odds of a recession — and what one would look like in Charlotte if it hits
Is a recession around the corner?
Are tariffs setting us up for a slowdown?
And how will all of this affect Charlotte, a city known for its fast growth?
With a volatile stock market and a new administration in Washington, those are some of the questions weighing on people’s minds these days. And we put them to one of Charlotte’s most respected economic voices, Mark Vitner.
Vitner, formerly a senior economist at Wells Fargo, is the chief economist with Piedmont Crescent Capital in Charlotte and regularly advises policymakers, businesses and civic leaders. He’s uniquely positioned to explain where things stand—and what might be coming next.
In a recent interview on The Charlotte Ledger Podcast, he told Ledger editor Tony Mecia that there are reasons for both concern and cautious optimism.
Some excerpts from the discussion (which you can hear in full here), edited for clarity and brevity:
Q. Obviously, there’s a lot going on with the economy right now. The market's been pretty volatile the last few weeks. There are a lot of questions about what's going on with the economy. What's your take?
There’s a real sense of déjà vu. I’ve been through a lot of these things. I’m old enough that I remember the ’87 crash and certainly the dot-com bust, and then the global financial crisis. It kind of has a feel of that in some ways, but it also is different from anything that we’ve seen before, because the underlying fundamentals of the economy are still pretty sound.
But this trade war is taking us somewhere that we really have never been.
Q. When you say that the economy is fundamentally sound, I'm guessing that's on data that is at least a few weeks old. But it can be very unsettling to people to see these headlines of the stocks just plummeting one day and then going up a little bit the next and plummeting the next day. What do we know about the strength of the economy right now?
The data that we’re looking at is mostly through March, and so it is behind us.
The unemployment rate is low. It’s 4.2%. That is right at the level that the Fed thinks is full employment, meaning everybody that wants a job and is capable of doing that job has a job and that it gets really harder for businesses to fill jobs with skilled workers.
The inflation numbers have actually been coming down, but tariffs are scaring people. … Consumers expect inflation to rise 6.7% over the next year, which is about double what economists expect, which has been increased by about a percentage point since the trade war started.
Q. What's the outlook here?
The odds of recession are certainly increased, but I’d say it’s narrowly in favor that we don’t have a recession rather than we have one.
The natural tendency is for the economy to grow, but one of the things that I’m watching closely and concerns me is airline revenue passenger miles. It’s kind of an obscure number. We get it pretty much the first day of the month.
Airlines have been warning that their traffic is way off. It is one of the best real-time indicators that we get. It has a high correlation with GDP growth.
I’m beginning to tilt more toward the recession camp. And when you open the door to a recession, you really don’t know what you’re going to get. Everybody says, “Well, it’ll be a mild one.” I think the base case is recessions tend to last for nine months, and there’s not really any such thing as a mild one.
It’s only mild to the people that hold onto their jobs and don’t see their incomes fall.
Q. What would a recession look like, especially here in Charlotte and the Carolinas? If we were to go into a recession, what would you expect to see?
Charlotte has been one of the exceptional areas in the last year. It reminds me a little bit of the financial crisis in that Charlotte was booming right up until the crisis. We were outperforming our peers, and that’s where we are right now.
In the last 12 months, Charlotte has added more jobs than Atlanta has, and Atlanta is two to three times bigger than Charlotte, and I’m not talking about percentage increases.
And we’ve also outperformed our peers: Raleigh, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville.
We will see that heading into a recession, businesses begin to focus on cost-cutting. They become more risk-averse. They hire less. And we would see that job growth slow and probably decline.
The unemployment rate would rise largely in line with the nation. But just as with the U.S., Charlotte remains an incredibly attractive place. It’s a magnet for young college graduates. Companies like to hire young college graduates, and companies that like to hire those folks, they’re likely to continue to move here.
So I’m not worried that it’s going to throw us off track longer term, but a recession would be painful for the area.
Q. What are some of the characteristics of the Charlotte region's economy that set it up either better or worse than national conditions if we're headed into a recession?
The No. 1 driver for Charlotte is that we’ve been a very attractive place for businesses and young people. We’re like the No. 1 market for baby chasers, which are parents of younger folks who have kids, and the parents move to live close to their grandkids.
We’re a regional hub, there’s a lot of economic activity around us.
One of the things that surprises people is that there are more people living within 100 miles of Trade and Tryon streets than live within 100 miles of Five Points in Atlanta. So there are more people — 8.5 million people that live within 100 miles of Charlotte.
People come in for football games, basketball games, concerts, to go shopping in SouthPark. That’s not going to change.
After the pandemic, we saw this enormous affordability migration from high-cost parts of the country — California, New York, South Florida — and that’s actually gained momentum. And what we’ve seen the last two years is an accelerated outflow out of Florida. So we’ve got a lot more Floridians that are moving here, and continued inflows from the Northeast.
The arithmetic doesn’t change.
If you look at other cities that have a major airline hub, Charlotte is probably the lowest-cost place to live or to headquarter your business, if you are dependent on travel, of any of those. That’s like Atlanta, Miami, Philadelphia, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles — if airline travel is important to your business, Charlotte is a great deal.
And I think will continue to work in our favor once we get to the other side of this.
—
You can listen to the full conversation on Charlotte’s economy on the latest episode of The Charlotte Ledger Podcast. It’s a 15-minute episode and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast platforms.
Today’s supporting sponsor is Landon A. Dunn, attorney-at-law in Matthews:
🎥 WATCH: A look back at Tariq Bokhari’s 8 years in office, in under 3 minutes
Charlotte City Council member Tariq Bokhari, who represented south Charlotte since 2017, stepped down Sunday as he prepares to take the No. 2 job at the Federal Transit Administration.
The Ledger put together a short 3-minute video of some of Bokhari’s most memorable moments — from a no-holds-barred media interview to clashes with his colleagues to musings about tech innovations to trolling a political opponent with an airplane banner.
Check it out:
IRS postpones due date for income taxes to September for North Carolinians; but maybe just get them in and be done with it?
North Carolinians now have five more months to finish their income taxes for 2024, after the Internal Revenue Service said last week that it’s pushing the deadline back to Sept. 25 because of last fall’s hurricane.
Anyone who files taxes probably has April 15 seared into their brains as the due date. But last fall, the IRS shifted the deadline to May 1 in affected counties because of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which badly damaged parts of Western North Carolina and an area of Mecklenburg County near Mountain Island Lake.
This month, the entire North Carolina congressional delegation urged a further delay. Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, whose district includes part of Mecklenburg, told the Carolina Journal that he recently visited Lake Lure and Chimney Rock and that “the road to full recovery is far from over.” He added: “The last thing on these folks’ minds right now is filing their taxes. We need to give them the time and flexibility they need.”
On Thursday, the IRS agreed. The revised deadline applies even to those who suffered no effects from the storm: “Individuals and households that reside or have a business anywhere in North Carolina qualify for tax relief,” the IRS said in a statement.
The extension also applies to other tax deadlines, including quarterly estimated tax payments, quarterly payroll and excise tax returns and 2024 contributions to IRAs and health savings accounts.
The N.C. Department of Revenue, though, has issued no guidance on whether it, too, is shifting the due date to September — though it seems likely that it will.
If you live in Charlotte and have no legitimate reason for waiting several more months, the best advice might be to finish up those taxes and get them in. —Tony Mecia
Related Ledger article:
American to make wifi free on flights beginning in January
American Airlines plans to make free wifi available on 90% of its planes beginning in January 2026, the airline announced last week.
American, which has its 2nd-largest hub in Charlotte, said it had tested free wifi on several routes in recent months and that the service “surpassed performance expectations.” It’s outfitting more than 500 regional jets with high-speed wifi by the end of this year.
The wifi will be available to members of American’s AAdvantage loyalty program, which is free to join. Once the wifi is available, American will have “free inflight connectivity on more planes than any other domestic carrier,” American said.
American has some of the most expensive charges for in-flight wifi. The cost varies by flight, but it’s routinely $20 or more.
The test comes as other airlines such as Delta and JetBlue have shifted toward offering free wifi on their flights. —Tony Mecia
Related Ledger article:
🎭 Review: With on-point casting and a rich score, ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ captures the world of a girl growing old before her time
Actress Carolee Carmello, 62, plays the title role of “Kimberly Akimbo,” a 16-year-old who has a condition that causes her to age at four to five times the rate of the average person. (Photo courtesy of Blumenthal Arts)
Ledger arts critic Lawrence Toppman took in one of last week’s performances of the touring Broadway musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” which is playing at the Knight Theater through April 27. The show won three Tony awards in 2023 for best musical, book and score.
In his review for The Ledger, Toppman writes:
Lyricist-author David Lindsay-Abaire, who adapted his 2001 play into this 2021 musical, doesn’t specify what Kimberly Akimbo’s unnamed illness is. Circumstances suggest progeria: Kimberly ages at a rate of four to five times the norm for humanity, her affliction affects one person in 50 million, and she has already reached her average life expectancy.
Yet the opening number tells us the main theme is not oddity or uniqueness but the need we all have in common: To be fully seen and known for what we are. As six teens express anxieties at an ice-skating rink in northern New Jersey, we realize the young people who define Kimberly by her disease are also being defined by others in superficial ways. Like her, they hate it.
Read Toppman’s full review, with information if you want to go:
➡️ Ledger subscribers can add the free Toppman on the Arts newsletter on their “My Account” page.
In case you missed it: ‘Retiring Well,’ a series from The Charlotte Ledger
Our team was off last week for spring break. But before we left town, we loaded in a four-part series called “Retiring Well,” a look at how to make the most of this next chapter in life.
You can check out the four installments here:
MONDAY: Redefining retirement — and doing it well: What it means to grow older with purpose, community — and a plan.
TUESDAY: Retirees share their best advice: Charlotte-area retirees reflect on their best decisions, biggest surprises and what they wish they’d known.
WEDNESDAY: How to choose a 55+ community: How to ask the right questions and make informed decisions about where — and how — you want to live.
THURSDAY: 5 smart strategies on elder caregiving: Expert advice on how families can approach aging with less stress, more understanding and better preparation.
You might be interested in these Charlotte events: Charlotte Wine + Food Grand Tasting, Discussion with photographer Maya Goded, Ledger 40 Over 40 awards
Events submitted by readers to The Ledger’s events board:
SATURDAY: “Charlotte Wine + Food | The Grand Tasting,” 7-9:30 p.m., The Union at Station West. The largest tasting experience of the annual Charlotte Wine + Food Week presented by Truist is one that is sure to delight. With a selection of over 100 carefully curated wines from around the globe, mouthwatering bites from Charlotte’s culinary artisans, live music and exclusive online auction items for preview, our Grand Tasting has something for every taste. $150.
APRIL 29: “Artist Talk with Photographer Maya Goded,” 7-8:30 p.m., Mint Museum Randolph, 2730 Randolph Road, Charlotte. In conjunction with The Mint Museum's exhibition “Women of Land and Smoke,” internationally renowned photographer Maya Goded joins Jen Sudul Edwards, Ph.D., chief curator and curator of Contemporary Art at the Mint, for a discussion about relationships with her subjects and her career as a photographer. Free.
MAY 8: “The Charlotte Ledger 40 Over 40 Awards, Presented by U.S. Bank,” 6-9 p.m., Heist Brewery and Barrel Arts, 1030 Woodward Ave. Join The Charlotte Ledger as we celebrate this year’s 40 Over 40 award recipients — people who are making the Charlotte area a better place. It will be a fun night out of networking, dinner, drinks, live music from Uptown Dueling Pianos, award ceremony,\ and more. Tickets are all-inclusive. $95.
➡️ List your event on the Ledger events board.
In brief:
Prayers for Pope Francis: The Catholic Diocese of Charlotte is opening all of its 93 churches at 7 p.m. today for prayers for Pope Francis, who died Monday morning at age 88. Bishop Michael Martin and other local Catholic leaders reflected on Pope Francis’ legacy in this article in the Catholic News Herald.
Crime falls: Violent crime in Charlotte in the first quarter of 2025 fell 17% and property crime was down 4%, compared with the same period in 2024, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police said. (CMPD press release)
Home sales drop again: The number of home sales in Mecklenburg County dropped 6% in March compared with a year earlier, the second straight month of declines, according to Canopy Realtor Association. The median sales price rose 8%, to $463,000.
Library branches closed through Tuesday: All branches of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library are closed through Tuesday as the system installs new software. (WFAE)
Restaurant guide or pay-to-play listing? N.C. tourism organizations will pay $345,000 annually for the highly regarded Michelin travel guide to review restaurants in the state. The Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority is one of several tourism offices spending $45,000 a year to help pay for Michelin reviews, which are expected to increase food tourism. (Axios Charlotte)
Airport ranking: Charlotte’s airport rose to the 6th-busiest worldwide based on the number of takeoffs and landings in 2024, up from No. 7 the previous year. The rise in the rankings comes largely from an increase in flights by American Airlines. It’s 7th in North America, or No. 23 worldwide, based on total passengers. (Charlotte airport press release)
In memoriam: The long-serving former artistic director of Charlotte Ballet, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, died last week at age 82. (Observer)
Tariff effects: Some N.C. businesses in industries including shrimping and textiles are pleased with new tariffs, which they say help them combat foreign competition. (The Assembly)
Train death: A pedestrian died Saturday after being struck by a train on Archdale Drive near Old Pineville Road. (WBTV)
Dorm break-in: A UNC Chapel Hill freshman was charged with breaking into two apartments at an N.C. State dorm in which women were sleeping and stealing granola bars. (WRAL)
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