Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2015

Keywords

Northwest Arkansas, economics, economics performance

Abstract

The State of the Northwest Arkansas Region Report is an annual publication, commissioned by the Northwest Arkansas Council, that serves as a tool for evaluating the economic performance of the region. The Northwest Arkansas Council announced in January 2015 that the organization’s five-year strategic plan for 2010-2015 was completed one year ahead of schedule. As a result, the Northwest Arkansas Council created a blueprint for development that outlines new peer regions and strategies for 2015-2017. In the new three-year plan, the performance of Northest Arkansas is benchmarked with other contemporary, high-performing regions such as Austin, Des Moines, Madison, and Raleigh-Durham. The 2015 State of the Region Report compares Northwest Arkansas with these geographies in the areas of gross domestic product, employment, unemployment, establishment growth, per capita personal income, average annual wages, poverty, educational attainment, research and development, homeownership cost, and commuting time. The table below provides a summary of the performance of the Northwest Arkansas region on these measures. Important indicators such as gross domestic product, employment, per capita personal income, and wages showed strong increases from the previous year, while improvements in metrics such as establishment growth, educational attainment, and poverty were more limited for Northwest Arkansas.

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