Tagged: Economy

As federal lawmakers debate how to avoid falling off the looming fiscal cliff, a report commissioned for the Aerospace Industries Association shows Idaho could lose 10,411 defense-related jobs.  The U.S. could face job losses totaling two million, according to the report.

RealtyTrac’s midyear foreclosure report gives emphasis to the mantra we’ve been hearing all year about Idaho’s housing market: it’s improving.

In Idaho, the timber and ag industries are heavy hitters.  They play big roles in the state’s history and identity.  But the recession has dealt them different hands, dividing rural Idaho into winners and losers.  StateImpact Idaho takes a look at two industries, two counties, and two economic fates. 

Boise home values have improved by nearly five percent from their post-recession low.  That’s enough of an increase that a recent Brookings Institution report ranks the city first for its house price recovery.  StateImpact reported that finding early this week.

Boise earned sixth place in a recent ranking of cities’ economic recoveries, a strong finish that’s based largely on improvement in local home prices.

It’s a rare thing for a small sawmill to try to get up and running while a crucial market driver for lumber — housing construction — remains in a national slump.

So when the Emerald Forest Products mill reopened in Emmett, Idaho this month, something unusual was happening.

Every state, including Idaho, offers tax breaks, grants or subsidies to businesses in hopes of spurring economic development.

But the states vary widely in terms of what they do when a company doesn’t create as many jobs as it agreed to, or otherwise follow through with its end of the incentive bargain.

Mirroring the national jobless rate increase, Idaho’s unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point last month, ending a nine-month decline in the economic measure.

For months now, our “Jobless in Idaho” series has followed people here in Idaho as they search for work against hard odds.  Kelly Barker, a single mom from Meridian, had been out of work for the better part of a year when we met her last winter.  Since then, she’s made do with a combination of temp work, food stamps and unemployment benefits.  In April, those benefits were running out.

Barker was scouring the web for job possibilities when we last met.  It was a tense time, and Barker knew there was only one option.  She had to find work.  “I don’t have a contingency plan,” she said.  “You know, a mortgage payment – you’d have to have a lot of savings to sustain you for a long period of time, and I don’t, so I have ten weeks to find a job.  Period.”

An unwelcome stowaway from the East Coast showed up in a Nampa home last month.  A brown marmorated stink bug likely hitched a ride in furniture or packing materials to Idaho.  This is the first time this pest has been found in Idaho.

This stink bug originated in Asia and popped up in mid-Atlantic states in the 1990s.  They have already caused major damage outside of Idaho to fruits and vegetables, especially apples, peaches, and pears.