washington business
urban-rural divide
As important : Experts expect the expansion to continue . That confidence led to a whopping $ 1.3 billion increase in February ’ s official state revenue forecast , easing the path to an on-time budget agreement without major tax increases .
Yet , Washingtonians know that what ’ s called the state economy is often not the economy in their cities and towns . Job creation and investment is uneven , as is the mix of business and industry . Some communities are unaffordable for all but the very rich . In others , housing prices have shown much more moderate growth .
AWB has called attention to this urban-rural divide , the split between prosperous metros and struggling small towns . Concern with lagging rural economic development led AWB to host two Rural Jobs Summits in 2017 and sparked an important statewide policy debate . A 2018 Rural Jobs Summit is planned for November . And it has prompted an interest in digging deeper into regional differences to understand the anatomy of Washington ’ s economy .
Though it ’ s likely every Washingtonian has an idea about how to carve up the state , there ’ s always going to be something arbitrary about how to divide Washington into discrete regions . This review draws on a regional map created by the Boston Consulting Group ( BCG ) in partnership with the Washington Roundtable in their joint report , Unlocking Washington ’ s Full Potential : A Framework for Diversified & Inclusive Economic Growth .
“ Thinking about the subareas provides a nice way of understanding what policy levers you might be able to deploy to improve the economic outlook in a given region .”
— Sean Matthewson , principal , Boston Consulting Group
At A Glance
The King County metro area is by far the state ’ s largest employment , income and population center . To a large extent , the King County economy is the state economy .
Increasing job creation in “ underperforming regions ” will add thousands of jobs to the state and reduce economic disparities .
Unlocking Washington ’ s Full Potential www . waroundtable . com / wp-content / uploads / 2018 / 01 / UnlockingthePotentialWA . pdf
Washington state Employment Security Department Labor Market Information esd . wa . gov / labormarketinfo
30 association of washington business