Trends: Tri-City GDP rose to $10.2B in 2014

This week’s statistic from Benton-Franklin Tends is a gift to economic development nerds: Between 2001 and 2014, the Tri-City economy grew 35 percent.

Benton-Franklin Trends is an initiative of Eastern Washington University’s Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis to measure the economic, civic and educational life of the community drawing from state and federal data sources.

This week’s report takes a look at the local Metro Gross Domestic Product as well as the economy measured on a per person basis. All numbers are in 2009 dollars and adjusted for inflation.

Metro GDP is a mechanism for measuring local economic activity relative to the national GDP.

That said, the Tri-City Metro GDP was $10.2 billion in 2014, more than a third more than in 2001. The local GDP peaked at nearly $11 billion in 2010 after the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act steered nearly $2 billion to the Hanford cleanup.

On a per person basis, the Tri-City GDP is in decline, which runs counter to a slight post-stimulus increase at the state and national level.

The local GDP was $37,249 per person in 2014, well below Washington state’s $54,710 level and the national $52,526.

This story was originally published June 17, 2016 at 2:35 PM with the headline "Trends: Tri-City GDP rose to $10.2B in 2014."