Economy

The Opportunity Insights Project and Economic Mobility in Montgomery County

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Montgomery County Planning works to create thriving places across the county. This goal is reflected in our proposed General Plan update, Thrive Montgomery 2050, master plans, functional plans, and other special studies.

But how do we know if a place is indeed thriving?  We often use publicly available data from agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to analyze shifts in key indicators of an area’s economic vitality.

Now let’s zoom in on the map and ask a deeper question: do thriving neighborhoods help the people living in them to thrive? Put another way, do neighborhoods thrive because the people living in them improved their economic status, or because people of higher … Continue reading

Does Montgomery County Have What it Takes to be Economically Resilient During & After COVID-19?

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Keys to Building Economic Resilience in Montgomery County Post-Pandemic

As we await post-pandemic life and speculate about our economic future, the idea of economic resilience—how quickly and easily we as individuals and society can adapt to and recover from a devastating economic blow—is on everyone’s minds. So let’s examine the idea of economic resilience: what the term “resilience” means for a local economy, what characteristics and conditions make local economies resilient in the face of economic challenges and how Montgomery County can position itself to be more resilient.

Local Economies, Adaptive Resilience, and Relationships

Economic resilience is adaptive resilience. This is different from the type of resilience we expect from our physical infrastructure, which “bounces back” to normal functioning … Continue reading

Five ways to support the retail and restaurant sector battered by COVID-19 restrictions to recover

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The retail that helps define Montgomery County’s character is struggling. The necessary COVID-19 restrictions that reduce crowds will continue to challenge retail in Montgomery County even after the lockdown eases, but the county has policies and programs that could help landlords, retailers, employees and the customers they serve.

Montgomery County’s extensive retail sector with 40.6 million leasable square feet across 2,390 properties (Source: CoStar) serves a diverse population and is a key amenity for the County. In their 2017 Retail Trends Study, the Montgomery County Planning Department highlighted vibrant, small retail businesses and recommended that the County would “benefit from focusing on the development and support of these unique small businesses, as these businesses are market differentiators for the … Continue reading

COVID-19 and the Economy: People Employed in Montgomery County’s Service, Retail, and Hospitality Occupations and Industries Hit Hard by Pandemic

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Several weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, it has already become cliché to say that we are living in unprecedented times, but it is still too early to understand exactly how severe the economic damage will be, and how it will effect Montgomery County and its residents. While hundreds of thousands are already suffering the direct health effects of the COVID-19, the indirect economic fallout from the near closure of the economy is also becoming apparent. From the weeks ending March 21 through April 11, over 22 million people filed for Federal unemployment insurance in the U.S., including over 38,600 people in Montgomery County. This volume has far surpassed all previous records. The $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program created by … Continue reading

County Household Income Still Recovering from the Great Recession

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For the past eight years, the median household income in Montgomery County has remained below the level during the Great Recession. Moreover, median household incomes have yet to recover to the 1999 benchmark of $101,824 after the precipitous drop in 2010 to $96,913 (illustrated in Figure 1). The median household income – the income at which half of the households are above and half are below – adjusted for inflation, dropped 5.8 percent (-$6,063) from its peak in 2007 to $98,917 in 2015.[1]  The latest estimate is 2.9 percent lower than the adjusted 1999 median household income of $101,824.

 

Figure 1.  Montgomery County Median Household Income 1999-2015 (constant 2015 dollars)

Still considered one of the wealthiest counties in … Continue reading