In my City Talk column today, I give a quick summary of the health of the Savannah area economy here at the halfway point of 2012.
There are lots of positive signs and trends, but employment remains weak — very weak — and a number of important measures are still below their pre-recession levels.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank has a coincident index of economic activity, which is heavily weighted toward employment. The index is published monthly with an emphasis on the most current data, although the map you will see below uses a 3-month trend.
From the current release:
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released the coincident indexes for the 50 states for June 2012. In the past month, the indexes increased in 30 states, decreased in nine states, and remained stable in 11 states, for a one-month diffusion index of 42. Over the past three months, the indexes increased in 39 states, decreased in nine states, and remained stable in two states, for a three-month diffusion index of 60. For comparison purposes, the Philadelphia Fed has also developed a similar coincident index for the entire United States. The Philadelphia Fed’s U.S. index rose 0.2 percent in June and 0.6 percent over the past three months.
A few months ago, this map was pretty much all green:
