By Adam Pagnucco.
This series examines new estimates by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for employment and related stats in 2022. Part One looked at total employment, Part Two looked at private sector employment, Part Three looked at establishment counts and Part Four looked at total wages paid by payroll employers. Today we conclude with a history of those four measures for both Montgomery County and the rest of the region.
BLS’s current employment, establishment and wage series for local jurisdictions begins in 2001. The charts below show total employment, private employment, establishment count and total wages paid for Montgomery County and the rest of the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria region using 2001 as an index base of 100.0. This allows for apples-to-apples comparisons on the same charts.
These charts are all telling the same story: Montgomery County’s economic performance has lagged the region for two decades. It is the exact same story told by data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis on population, gross domestic product, personal income and proprietor income. There is some variation by measure as Montgomery County does better on total wages paid and worse on private sector employment growth. But the body of evidence as a whole is remarkably consistent: we are underperforming and it’s not getting better.
This is a HUGE problem and is the number one challenge facing the county’s leadership.
Look folks, let’s not lay this exclusively at the feet of those currently in elected office. These problems started before any of them were elected and a majority of the county council members are freshmen. But since they are now in power, it’s their problem to solve. And the new leadership has responded with three consecutive tax hikes and is considering rent control, which has a long and ruinous record documented by economists for decades.
Sometimes tax hikes are necessary. That was certainly the case during the Great Recession, when the county was on the verge of losing its AAA bond rating. We are also not the only jurisdiction in recent times to levy tax hikes, although that was rare across the region this year.
But we are playing from behind and we need to act like it. We need URGENCY. If we don’t change course and this twenty year trend intensifies, we will suffer greatly. Our recent population losses might become entrenched. Those of us who are employed will keep going to Virginia and D.C. for work. Our budgets will become regular Darwinian battles straight out of the Lord of the Flies. The winners will brandish bloody budgetary trophies to the stained heavens while the losers flee to avoid repeated tax increases and economic deprivation.
Everyone now in county elected office needs to look at themselves and ask if they are ready for the challenge, if they are ready to break this cycle once and for all. If not, the county’s long-term relative economic decline will become both absolute and irreversible.