Friday, June 17, 2011

The inaugural edition of the Momentum West Economic Dashboard releasec

The UW- River Falls Center for Economic Research (CER) in partnership with Momentum West has released the inaugural edition of the Momentum West Economic Dashboard. The dashboard is a snapshot of the economic condition of the labor, consumer and housing markets in the ten county Momentum West Economic Development Region. It presents the latest available data* in one convenient package and can be viewed on the CER's website at www.uwrf.edu/cer. The dashboard will be released on a monthly on about the third Friday of every month.


Overall indicators suggest continued, albeit slow, economic recovery in ten county Momentum West region. The unemployment rate decreased at both the state and regional and the state levels.  The regional unemployment rate dipped to 7.2% in April ‘11, which is 0.1 percentage points below the state unemployment rate. The decrease in the unemployment rate has been driven by a general upward trend over the last 3 months in both total employment and the labor force. Increases in both total employment and labor force are significant sings of improvement in the labor market.

The housing market is also sowing some signs of improvement. While the median home price for the region is significantly lower in May ’11 than one year previous (the median home price is down 27%), the median price has increased in both April and May. It still looks to be some time before home prices reach the 2010 level.

For additional information on the June edition of the Momentum West Economic Dashboard, contact Dr. Logan Kelly at cer@uwrf.edu or (715) 425-4993 or Noel Eggebraaten at neggebraaten@cvtc.edu  or (715) 874-4683.

*Please note that most regional data is available with between a one and two month delay, thus the current month's dashboard will have data from previous months.

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