ECONOMIC RESILIENCE

MEASURING RESILIENCE

The region should measure its resilience through various standardized resilience measures, including the degree of regional income equality (i.e., how evenly income is distributed across a regional population) and the degree of regional economic diversification (i.e., degree to which economic activity is spread across sectors). As needed, the region should obtain and regularly update resiliency data with which to benchmark the region against national averages.

In our region, there is a relatively homogenous distribution of income, relative to other regions. However, because of the generally lower-than-state-and-national-average per capita incomes and relatively higher-than-state-and-national poverty rates, it can be said that the region is perhaps less resilient than its income distribution would suggest.

In our region, there has been a somewhat disturbing reduction in economic diversification, as manufacturing jobs are being replaced by service and commercial jobs, which often are lower wage, and which often do not provide benefits. Both the decreasing diversification rates and economic restructuring imply that the region might be less resilient than would be desirable.