"The things that city managers can control, they are controlling very well," Beckett said. In December, fellow rating agency Moody's Investors Service improved its outlook on a slightly lower credit rating to stable from negative. Moody's attributed the incremental improvement to growing income tax and business privilege tax revenues as well as Mayor Ray O'Connell's decision to raise its property tax rate 13%, which "demonstrated willingness to increase tax revenue rather than rely on one-time cash inflows to support ongoing operations." Like S&P, Moody's dinged the city for its low median income as well as its for its "stagnant and well-above-average unemployment" rate — 6.3% compared with 4% nationally as of last July. In its report last week, S&P noted that Lehigh County's unemployment rate spiked to 16.5% in April. As of June, it remained at 14.3%, higher than the 13% statewide rate.