Little Rock Again Named Nation’s Fourth Strongest Economy by Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution’s MetroMonitor, a quarterly, interactive barometer of the health of America’s 100 largest metropolitan economies, has ranked the Little Rock region the nation’s fourth strongest.

The Brookings Institution ranked the 100 largest metros by averaging the ranks for four key indicators: employment change, unemployment change, gross metropolitan product, and home price change. Employment was measured by the change from the peak quarter for each metro to the second quarter of 2009. The peak was the quarter in which the metro had the most jobs during the past five years. Unemployment was ranked by measuring the percentage-point change from the first quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2009. Gross metropolitan product was measured from the peak quarter to the second quarter of 2009. And the ranking of home prices compared the second quarter of 2009 to the previous quarter. The employment data were provided by Moody’s Economy.com, the unemployment data were collected from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the home price index came from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

According to the report, the Little Rock region achieved the following rankings:

– Job Growth (Since Peak) – 11
– Gross Metro Product (Since Peak) – 24
– Unemployment Change (Year over Year) – 7
– Home Price Change (Year over Year) – 11

As reported by Business Week, “the economy in Little Rock, the state capital, has remained strong though the local unemployment rate has been rising… Employment in the Little Rock metro peaked in the first quarter of last year. Gross metropolitan product in the second quarter was down just 2.8% from the peak in the third quarter of 2008. Home prices grew 3% in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. And the unemployment rate in June was 6.6%, up 2.1 points from a year earlier.”

The MetroMonitor examines trends in metropolitan-level employment, output, and housing conditions to look “beneath the hood” of national economic statistics to portray the diverse metropolitan trajectories of recession and recovery across the country. The aim of the MetroMonitor is to enhance understanding of the particular places and industries that drive national economic trends, and to promote public- and private-sector responses to the downturn that take into account metro areas’ unique starting points for eventual recovery.

Read the Full MetroMonitor Report