Trends: When Washington economy zigs, local economy zags

This week’s report from Benton-Franklin Trends takes a look at job creation, and it is truly a study in contrasts.

During the past decade, when the local economy revved, usually because of spending on Hanford cleanup, the state’s economy slowed. And vice versa.

Between 2005-06, Benton and Franklin counties were job-creating machines, adding more than 4,600 jobs for an annual growth rate of 4.9 percent.

In contrast, Washington’s economy during that period saw its growth rate drop from 3 percent to 2.6 percent.

That pattern continued into the economic crash of 2008 and into 2009.

Everything changed in 2009, when Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The result was massive spending on government projects — including cleanup work at Hanford.

Hiring for projects turned job declines into gains. That was particularly true in Benton and Franklin counties, after the Department of Energy steered nearly $2 billion in stimulus money to Hanford.

Together, the counties added almost 4,000 jobs in the first year alone. The local economic growth rate rose to 3.8 percent in 2010.

Washington began to add jobs, but its growth rate remained in negative territory in the first year. By 2011, local and state economies were growing at the same rate, about 1.3 percent.

The two economies diverged again as Washington’s economy improved while Benton and Franklin county economies dipped into negative territory with the falling off of stimulus spending. By 2014, the gap narrowed. The local economy was growing by 2.2 percent, just a few points behind Washington’s 2.8 percent rate.

The job creation report is compiled from data provided by the Washington State Employment Security Department’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

Benton-Franklin Trends is an initiative of the Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis at Eastern Washington University to use state and federal data to measure the local economic, educational and civic life of Benton and Franklin counties.

Its reports are free and available at bit.ly/BFTrends.

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This story was originally published March 12, 2016 at 5:07 PM with the headline "Trends: When Washington economy zigs, local economy zags."