The long view is rosier than it seems

Urban service industries are supporting the economy

The major change in the May statistics was a sharp increase in the unemployment rate, from 4.6 percent in April to a preliminary estimate of 5.1 percent in May. This increase occurred because the decline in employment reported by...

The nation continues to flirt with recession, hammered by problems in the financial services sector, but buoyed by Federal Reserve actions to stimulate lending and buttress troubled financial institutions. Strong exports are also...

As of February, the Washington economy is holding up very well compared with the national economy. February brought news of a worsening situation in financial markets, along with moves by the Federal Reserve system to shore up...

Washington's economy is slowing significantly, although it is not clear if the state will slip into a recession. At the national level, recessions are proclaimed after the fact by the National Bureau of Economic Research. So far,...

Early in 2008, the U.S. economy was teetering at the edge of a recession, with unprecedented losses at major financial institutions, falling stock market indexes...

Tacoma is the second largest metropolitan area in the state. Pierce County as a whole is considered by the federal government to be a metropolitan division within the Seattle/Tacoma Consolidated Metropolitan Area.

Spokane is the third largest metropolitan area in the state, following the Seattle-Everett corridor and Tacoma. It is the transportation, health care and business services center for much of eastern Washington, as well as...

The "subprime" market has evaporated and the stress is showing in the economy in several places. The accompanying graph shows the impact on the natural resources sector - forestry and mining - as well as in wood products. The two...

The aerospace industry is Washington's largest manufacturer and largest exporter. The largest company, by far, in this industry in Washington is Boeing. The company's main airplane manufacturing facilities are in Everett and...

Software publishing continues to expand in Washington, with 3,100 jobs added in April since the year before. The expansion is driven by Microsoft. But there is also a large and growing information technology cluster. ...

Washington state’s information sector has finally recovered from the collapse of the high-tech bubble in 2001. That, at least, is what the last quarter’s employment numbers suggest. The state’s information...