COEUR d’ALENE – Economic headwinds are blowing fiercely across Idaho and the rest of the country.
Rising interest rates, inflation and other challenges are obvious and widespread.
“We don’t want to minimize the impact of these issues, but when you have a labor market as strong as Idaho’s and wage growth, you have a lot of resilience in the face of these headwinds,” Sam Wolkenhauer, a labor economist with the Idaho Department of Labor said Thursday during his talk. North Idaho: Resisting Analytic Anarchy” at the Inland Northwest Partners’ Economic Forecast Fall Meeting at the Coeur d’Alene Resort.
Despite the headlines and discussions about economic woes, the Gem State shines.
“Nationwide, the economic climate is very uncertain, rather unclear and difficult to assess,” said Wolkenhauer. “But that’s not the case in Idaho. Everything is wonderful in Idaho. We are like this oasis. You think it’s a mirage because everything shimmers, and when you get closer you realize it’s this beautiful, lush garden in the middle of a dry desert.
Wolkenhauer reported that Idaho is adding an average of 2,700 new jobs per month – nearly double the average 1,400 jobs per month the state had before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Here in Idaho, we’re just this preeminent freight train from Hades heading to the right corner and nothing can stop us, this completely unstoppable force of job creation and economic expansion,” Wolkenhauer said.
Idaho consumption growth was 17% in 2021 and 12% in 2022.
“We know that inflation has detrimental effects on the economy, but if we look at Idaho, one might ask, ‘Uh, what kind of inflation and crisis have consumers faced there?'” if it continues to have a growing population , which is spending more and more per capita as we experience ever faster wage growth,” he said. “This is the state of analytical anarchy. We have countercurrents in the data.”
A look at confidence surveys and the consumer price index shows that consumers are not too satisfied with the current situation, said Wolkenhauer.
“But when you look at their actual behavior, you see that they are like wild animals,” he said. “As everyone knows, the goal of economics is to maximize consumption. That’s what we like to see.”
Inland Northwest Partners is a nonprofit organization founded to build a strong economic base in the communities of its members, which include more than 300 business and community leaders from Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho.
The Economic Forecast Autumn Meeting also included presentations by Grant Forsyth, senior economist at Avista Corporation – “Eastern Washington: Growth with Imbalances” – and “Disinflation, Legacies and Experiments” with John W. Mitchell of M&H Economics. Paul Kimmell, CEO of Inland Northwest Partners, also shared community reports.
Info: inwp.org
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