Area fares well during recession

WILKES-BARRE – The economic downturn has touched all areas of the country, but a newly released Brookings Institution report said the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region fared better than others in key areas of housing prices, unemployment and wages.

The think tank ranked the region 21st in its “MetroMonitor: Tracking Economic Recession and Recovery in America’s 100 Largest Metropolitan Areas.”

The report validates the long-term efforts of economic development organizations, elected officials and business leaders to diversify the region’s economic base and reinvest in the region, said Todd Vonderheid , president and chief executive officer of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry.

“What I read is a respected third-party analysis that flies in the face of popular, community understanding of the market,” Vonderheid said Friday.

The report, prepared by the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, examined a series of economic indicators through the first quarter of this year, including employment, unemployment, wages, output, home prices and foreclosure rates.

“While no metro area has been immune from the current economic downturn, the pain is unevenly distributed,” the report said.

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region ranked 15th in the category of percentage change in average wage from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009. The region recorded a 1.5 percent rate change, ahead of the national rate of 1 percent.

It fared even better in the change in house price category with an 11th-place ranking. The region had a 2.4 percent change, equal to the Austin-Round Rock, Texas metro area. In comparison, the rate for the United States as a whole was a negative 6.3 percent.

Its best ranking was sixth place in the category of homes owned by banks. The region had 0.94 real-estate-owned properties per 1,000 mortgageable properties, compared to the national rate of 3.06.

But the region ranked 44th in two other metrics. It had a negative 2.5 percent change in employment from peak employment to the first quarter of 2009. It also had a 3.2 percentage point change in the unemployment rate from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of this year.

Vonderheid said he e-mailed a copy of the report to a national real estate firm the chamber uses to attract developers and “their eyes popped out of their head.”

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Brookings Institution: Region ranks 21st among country’s largest 100 metro areas in economic downturn.

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