Latest Survey of US Business Owners

There were 23 million nonfarm U.S. businesses in 2002, employing 110.8 million persons and generating $22.6 trillion in business revenues. Firms with paid employees accounted for 5.5 million or 24.0 percent of these businesses and $21.8 trillion or 96.6 percent of their receipts.

The Company Summary: 2002 is the only report in the 2002 Survey of Business Owners (SBO) publication series to provide estimates of gender business ownership by Hispanic or Latino origin and race and estimates of White-owned firms. The report provides data on both the number of employer and nonemployer firms, sales and receipts, annual payroll, and employment. Data aggregates are presented by gender, Hispanic or Latino origin, and race for the United States by 2002 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), kind of business, state, metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, county, place, and employment and receipts size.

Learn more here.

US Travel and Tourism Sector Update

Growth in real tourism output slowed to an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the second quarter of 2006, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter of 2006, real tourism output grew 5.0 percent (revised). By comparison, real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the second quarter of 2006, and 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2006.

Tourism employment rose 3.1 percent in the first quarter of 2006, the largest quarterly increase in direct tourism employment in two years. By comparison, overall U.S. employment grew 1.7 percent in the first quarter of 2006.

Other highlights from this release of the travel and tourism satellite accounts include:

-Prices for tourism goods and services rose 7.4 percent in the second quarter of 2006, while the overall GDP price index rose 3.3 percent in the second quarter.

-Total current-dollar tourism-related output increased to $1.2 trillion in the second quarter of 2006.

-Total tourism-related employment accounted for 8.3 million jobs in the first quarter of 2006.

Ohio's Top Research Universities' Economic Impact

An earlier study captured the economic impact of Ohio's three largest research universities.

Among the study's findings, based on 2004 data:

-Collectively, Case Western Reserve, Ohio State and the University of Cincinnati have 35,257 full- and part-time employees, plus another 21,800 part-time student employees.

-They support another 10,400 Ohio jobs through in-state purchases of goods and services.

-Their revenues total $3.8 billion, of which only 19 percent is from state appropriations.

-Directly and indirectly, they account for more than 68,000 jobs and $6.2 billion of economic activity statewide.

-They enroll more than 86,734 undergraduate and graduate students, nearly 23 percent of all four-year university students in the state, 80 percent of whom are Ohio residents.

-They account for 80 percent of the university research in the state.

-The over $1 billion in sponsored research pursued at the universities is funded 63 percent by federal grants and contracts, 12 percent from corporations and foundations and 11 percent by state and local government.

-The universities' affiliated medical centers are responsible for 60 percent of all research spending ($608 million).

Download the report here.

Series on NE Ohio's Economy

NEO Economic Dashboard Indicators

and

Dashboard Summary 2006

Is Arizona Headed for a Repeat Real Estate Slump? Report Says No

Back to the 80s: Are We In for a Real Estate Repeat?

The amenities of desert living have long brought a strong inflow of new residents to Arizona, which is good for the real estate market but bad for institutional memory: Those who have not lived very long in the Grand Canyon State might not know about the great real estate downturn of the late 1980s and early '90s.

Arizona recovered from those rough years -- which saw large drop-offs in home prices, construction, construction employment, rental occupancy rates, land prices and a host of other indicators.

As the state and national real estate boom (some call it a bubble or a balloon) fueled by the low-interest policy of the Federal Reserve 2001-2004 cools off, investors, homebuyers and real estate professionals with long memories may be wondering if the approximately four-year plunge of 1987-91 is about to repeat.

Experts at the W. P. Carey School of Business advise some caution. But even though prices still are rising, a repeat of the '87-91 plunge is very unlikely because of a number of factors, they say, and Arizona will fare better than the rest of the nation in the next few years.

Conclusions:

-Arizona's economy and real estate market are faring better than the rest of the nation, and that trend is most probably will continue, so a repeat of the 1987-91 slump is very unlikely.

-Homeowners wishing to sell will have to wait a bit longer to close a deal and perhaps settle for slightly less than their asking price.

-Home buyers enjoy more choices and softening prices but face higher interest rates.

-Real estate professionals face a drop in activity from recent years' frenzy but still can enjoy a good year by historical standards.

-Investors, after years of short-term bonanzas, are advised to think more about the long term.

Flawed Poverty Numbers in College Towns

Read this one by the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

"The Census Bureau counts low-income college students who live off campus as poor - even if their parents pay their expenses. That describes a majority of the nation's college students who do not live in dormitories and who earn less than $9,800 from working in the summer or part time during the school year.

Whether in Berkeley, Calif., Ann Arbor, Mich., Provo, Utah, Gainesville, Fla., or Bowling Green and Columbus, Ohio, students in apartments and rented houses - the kids in college neighborhoods everywhere - are wildly inflating poverty rates.

This might merely be one for the joke books but for this: The government uses poverty figures to dole out money for anti-poverty programs. Census poverty numbers, no matter how inflated, go into the Department of Housing and Urban Development's formula for awarding Community Development Block Grants, a $3.7 billion program."

More here.

ED Futures Update

Dear ED Futures Reader:

Here is the latest update with articles posted to the ED Futures website in the past week.

Hope the fall season is treating all of you well. We have been extremely busy working on projects coast to coast. We recently completed a regional benchmarking project for the Charlotte Regional Partnership and a strategic planning assignment in McHenry County, IL. We are currently working on economic development strategy projects in the Tucson, AZ region (with KMK Consulting, Cincinnati, OH), Kokomo-Howard County, IN, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Warren County, Pennsylvania, Southfield, MI (with Carter-Burgess, Inc.) We expect to start another project in Indiana in the next month.

I will the keynoter at the Economic Developers Association of Canada (EDAC) Annual Conference in Thunder Bay, Ontario on September 26th. Perhaps I will see you there.

Best wishes,

Don Iannone
Publisher, ED Futures
Tel: 440.449.0753
Email: dtia@don-iannone.com

Toledo Blade Nails Ohio's Economic Slide

"Ohio’s slide is real. Its economy, which once paced the country, has trailed national averages in job creation and income growth for more than a decade. Politicians note frequently that the state lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs during the last five years.

Both major candidates for governor this fall know economic struggle personally, and both say they know what ails the state today."

Read more here.

Warren County, Ohio Peeks into Future

Warren County is one of the nation's fastest-growing counties, but it isn't resting on that laurel.

During a whirlwind two hours Wednesday morning, about 140 local education, business and government officials listened as Ed Barlow, a Michigan-based futurist, described the global forces shaping the 21st century and what communities ought to be thinking about to prepare.

Barlow described forces including globalization, accelerating knowledge, fewer qualified workers, converging technologies and the growth of diversity.

It left some in the audience at Procter & Gamble Pharmaceutical's Health Research Center feeling a little overwhelmed.

"It's a little like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant. It's awfully tough to digest it all," said Greg Smith, controller with Warren County Community Services.

Read more here.