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Puget Sound Indexer The Puget Sound Indexer is a new information service that uses objective data to describe growth and change in the Greater Seattle area.

The Puget Sound Indexer was active from April 2020 to April 2021. Although it is not being updated regularly, there is s...
03/02/2022

The Puget Sound Indexer was active from April 2020 to April 2021. Although it is not being updated regularly, there is still quite a bit of good content about the Puget Sound region that you may find useful. The editor may emerge from his other activities to pick up where he left off.

The Puget Sound Indexer was active from April 2020 to April 2021. Although it is not being updated regularly, there is still quite a bit of good content about the Puget Sound region that you may fi…

President Biden wants to get local governments to unlock their strict zoning laws. Minneapolis scraps strict single fami...
21/04/2021

President Biden wants to get local governments to unlock their strict zoning laws. Minneapolis scraps strict single family zoning. The California Assembly repeatedly tries to force local governments to allow transit oriented development. All good things to relieve the underbuilding of housing in the country, but all are aimed just one part of the housing market: apartments and condominiums. The problem is, most Americans don’t live in multi-family housing, most don’t want to, and the supply of single family houses is not keeping up with demand in large parts of the country....

Most Americans don’t live in multi-family housing and the supply of single family houses is not keeping up with demand. Yet housing policy solutions always seem to steer back to multi-family.

Sales taxes are tricky, but the way the system of collecting them has evolved raises some serious questions of fairness ...
07/04/2021

Sales taxes are tricky, but the way the system of collecting them has evolved raises some serious questions of fairness for most cities in the region. Out of the 9 or 10 percent tax added to purchases in most of the Puget Sound area, one cent is collected for local use. Of that, half a cent is mandatory for cities to impose....

Dealers in Fife recorded over a half a billion dollars in vehicle sales in 2019, and the city collected over $1,000 per household in taxes on those sales. In contrast, the adjacent city of Edgewood…

The service sector may still be trying to dig out of the hole, but the goods producing part of the economy seems to have...
07/04/2021

The service sector may still be trying to dig out of the hole, but the goods producing part of the economy seems to have made nearly a full recovery after the crash of 2020. Construction in February was up 5 percent over February 2020, and manufacturing has mostly climbed back to recent historic levels. One of the central threads of the pandemic economy narrative has been the partial shift in spending from services to goods: we can’t fly in airplanes so let’s buy a boat....

In January and February of this year, manufacturing indices were just about where they were in early 2020, when adjusted for inflation.

The state GDP numbers are in for 2020. While not a single state had real, inflation-adjusted GDP growth, Washington expe...
31/03/2021

The state GDP numbers are in for 2020. While not a single state had real, inflation-adjusted GDP growth, Washington experienced the second smallest GDP decline. And in nominal terms, without adjusting for inflation, the state’s economy actually grew slightly. Only the Beehive State did better. It was a roller coaster ride. From the prior year, adjusted for inflation, the state grew 2.1 percent in the first quarter, dropped by 6.6 percent in the second quarter, and then grew by 1.6 percent in the third and 1 percent in the fourth quarter....

While not a single state had real GDP growth in 2020, Washington experienced the second smallest decline. And in nominal terms, without adjusting for inflation, the state’s economy actually grew sl…

It has been a tough year for apartment owners. Rents have fallen in most markets in the Seattle area, and eviction morat...
31/03/2021

It has been a tough year for apartment owners. Rents have fallen in most markets in the Seattle area, and eviction moratoria have created confusion and mixed messages and expectations. Getting back to stability will take a while. Meanwhile, rents remain high in the area for many households. Even with recent drops, too many households will pay too much of their income for monthly rent....

We are starting to see an equalization of rents across the region, with rents falling in expensive areas and rising in less expensive areas. This equalization will be brutal for the lowest income r…

One of the unexpected outcomes of the economic turmoil of the past year has been the rapid growth in housing constructio...
24/03/2021

One of the unexpected outcomes of the economic turmoil of the past year has been the rapid growth in housing construction, especially single family homes. The year began with the continued drive of Millennials into prime family-formation age brackets, providing early tailwinds to the industry. A pandemic-driven push out of central cities, however temporary it may prove to be, added momentum and the homebuilding industry responded....

All of the subregions of the country, including the slow-growing Northeast, saw an increase in single family permits in 2020 over 2019. But, somehow Washington State missed the memo.

In the quest to wean the nation off of fossil fuels, one imperative will remain non-negotiable: people want to stay warm...
24/03/2021

In the quest to wean the nation off of fossil fuels, one imperative will remain non-negotiable: people want to stay warm in the winters that will persist, even with global warming. Central heat is one of civilization’s greatest achievements, and Americans are not going to give it up. Nearly all residential heating is based on carbon-emitting fuels, and we will be seeing a transformation toward non-carbon-emitting heating sources....

In the quest to wean the nation off of fossil fuels, one imperative will remain non-negotiable: people want to stay warm in the winter. Central heat is one of civilization’s greatest achievements, …

Irresistible click-bait hit screens across Washington last week, as US News and World Report declared that Washington is...
17/03/2021

Irresistible click-bait hit screens across Washington last week, as US News and World Report declared that Washington is the Best State in America. And, woe to Louisiana, the Worst State in America. This is all baloney. You know that, but let’s again talk about why. We’ll go back the Indexer’s favorite economic concept—spatial equilibrium—which states that all places offer the same total value proposition in the long run....

Irresistible click-bait hit screens across Washington last week, as US News and World Report declared that Washington is the Best State in America. And, woe to Louisiana, the Worst State in America…

The pandemic relief bill recently signed by the President contains about $350 billion for state and local governments to...
17/03/2021

The pandemic relief bill recently signed by the President contains about $350 billion for state and local governments to make up for tax revenue that was lost due to the economic shutdown of the past year. This money is being allocated by a fairly strict formula based on population, and is not targeted at the areas most impacted (e.g. places with large tourist industries that have been shut down)....

Countywide (including unincorporated areas) sales tax collections were down about 9 percent for the year. But quite a number of cities had either very small losses or actual gains. The biggest lose…

The Superstar Cities—the Gated Cities of the Coast—are in full-throated panic over signs that the jig is up: they cannot...
10/03/2021

The Superstar Cities—the Gated Cities of the Coast—are in full-throated panic over signs that the jig is up: they cannot keep luring high priced talent to work in tech firms and live in high priced real estate. Are all those prized techies charging out of town? The signs are worrying for those that understand the consequences of a shrinking city and shrinking local incomes....

The Superstar Cities—the Gated Cities of the Coast—are in full-throated panic over signs that the jig is up: they cannot keep luring high priced talent to work in tech firms and live in high priced…

There is probably no more debated topic within economists’ circles these days than the impact of minimum wages. And with...
10/03/2021

There is probably no more debated topic within economists’ circles these days than the impact of minimum wages. And with the recent run at a $15 minimum wage as part of the pandemic relief bill, the topic is again front and center. Traditional theory says that any time the price of something increases (low skill labor) the demand for that thing will fall (fewer jobs and hours)....

Economists have performed a huge number of studies on the minimum wage and the results are all over the place. Some results show a drop in labor demand and others show little change. Seattle, with …

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