Economy on Track Despite Booming ?90s

By Bill Bowden

An economic boom in the late 1990s has Americans thinking that anything less is a weak economy.

“The economy is doing pretty well,” said Jeff Collins, director of the University of Arkansas’ Center for Business and Economic Research, at the Center’s quarterly business analysis breakfast on Oct. 28.

“The problem is the American public … wants to know why things aren’t growing like the end of the 1990s,” he said. “The reference point is the 1990s. The fact is, this is how we’ve been doing for decades [economically].”

With a national unemployment rate of 5.4 percent for September, Northwest Arkansas’ projected August unemployment of 2.5 percent shows how well the economy is doing here, Collins said. During August, 2,500 net jobs were added in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical area. In Fort Smith, the projected unemployment rate for August was 4.5 percent, which Collins noted is an improvement.

“We continue to grow very rapidly,” Collins said of Northwest Arkansas.

Wages are increasing, particularly for people with advanced college degrees, Collins said.

Construction in Benton County appears to be outpacing growth, Collins said. Many new homes in Centerton have yet to be sold, and Bentonville may be slightly overbuilt with office space, he said.

In addition to that, employment and personal income growth improved for the state as a whole, he said.