Richmond forecast 2021.

• Author: Cheung, Oi Lin

Total personal income and per capita personal income (PCPI) of Wayne County increased by a bigger percentage in 2018 (the most current data available at the time of this writing) relative to the prior year. The broader Richmond region (1) had about the same growth pattern as Wayne County in 2018. Wayne County's PCPI lagged behind Franklin County and Rush County within the region. Some more recent indicators illustrate that economic activity in the region declined in 2020. The labor force shrank and the unemployment rate surged for both Wayne County and the region. More than 600 private sector jobs were lost in Wayne County this year, compared to a single-digit loss last year. The region as a whole lost over 1,200 private sector jobs. On the other hand, the average weekly wage of private sector jobs in both Wayne County and the region slightly increased, with the growth percentage of the region more than double that of Wayne County. Wayne County's home sale prices rose significantly. The IU East Regional Business Confidence Index and its sub-indexes all recorded declines.

Income

Both Wayne County and the region continued to trend upward in total personal income in 2018 (see Figure 1). The region's total personal income also started to diverge more on the upside from the trend line. This illustrates a persistent improvement in the economic activity and living standard in the county. At the same time, the region improved by more than would have been predicted by the trend line. Wayne County's total personal income was $2,736,654,000 in 2018, up by 4.4% from the 2017 level and ranked 26th in the state of Indiana.

Wayne County's PCPI--ranked 52nd among the state's 92 counties--continued to lag behind Franklin County ($46,629, 19th) and Rush County ($46,945, 16th), which were the only counties catching up to the state average. The others in the region were falling behind significantly by over 10% (see Figure 3).

Labor market

Wayne County's labor force was made up of 30,516 people in August 2020, representing 31.8% of the region's total labor force of 96,001 people (see Figure 4 and Figure 5). The county had an average monthly size of labor force of 30,269 people for the first eight months in 2020, down by 2.5% from the same period in 2019. The region also saw the same percentage decrease in the labor force.

Wayne County's monthly unemployment rate averaged 3.6% in the first quarter of 2020. It went up to 14.8% in April, then down to about 10% in the following two months. The county saw a further drop to about 7% in July and August. Although the region had about the same monthly unemployment rate average in the first quarter of 2020, as a whole, it suffered a higher unemployment rate in April (17.4%) and May (11.8%), as shown in Figure 5

During the most difficult time (April and May, as a result of Indiana's lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19), (2) unemployment skyrocked (see Figure 6). Over the first eight months in 2020, Wayne County came out slightly better than the region and the state as measured by the average unemployment rate. Wayne County's average monthly unemployment rate was 7.6% compared to 8% for the region and the state during these eight months.

Jobs and wages

Wayne County's private sector lost 652 jobs in the first quarter of 2020 as compared with the first quarter of the previous year (see Table 1). Such job loss accounted for over 50% of the total private job loss in the region.

The amount of job loss in administrative, support, waste management and remediation contributed to more than half the private sector job loss in Wayne County. Both manufacturing and health care and social services lost over 80 jobs. The next hardest-hit industries were finance and insurance and accommodation and food services, both of which lost 45 jobs or more. The one-year change suggests that transportation and warehousing experienced a significant growth in employment by adding 62 jobs. The region as a whole saw a significant expansion in construction and accommodation and food services as estimated from the available data.

The average weekly wage for all private jobs was 3.2% higher in Wayne County relative to the regional average in the...