With much fanfare, the Census Bureau released its first population estimates from the 2010 census for the nation and the states. Per the table below, population in the five states of the Seventh District grew by 3.3 percent, or 1.2 million people, since the last national census was conducted in the year 2000. The average masks sharp differences among the states of the Seventh District. ... Read More

How can we best understand and adapt to the Region's long term changes? There are three trends that are fundamental to assessing the Region's economic behavior and prospects. One is the region's sharp sensitivity to the national business cycle. The region continues to specialize in manufacturing, especially durable goods sectors such as automotive and machinery. For this reason, the regio... Read More

As the sales of light vehicles (cars and light trucks) continue to move up ever so slightly from a deeply depressed state (see chart 1), many wonder about the outlook for the auto industry. How long will it be before we see another year of 16 million units sold in the U.S.? We need to remind ourselves that it's been fewer than two years since this industry experienced a dramatic slowdown.... Read More

Exports of goods and services have garnered much attention in recent months. For one reason, export growth has been leading the economic recovery in the United States. As several Asian and Latin American economies have begun to recover recently and strongly, they have begun to buy U.S. goods and services. The figure below shows annualized quarterly rates of export growth from the United S... Read More

When discussing the health of the manufacturing sector, one major issue is whether we should assess the number of people employed in the sector or focus on the amount of output created in manufacturing. Interestingly, each leads to the opposite conclusion about the strength of manufacturing in the United States.1 Manufacturing employment as a share of total employment in the Unite... Read More

The rapid flight of jobs and people from central cities, such as New York and Chicago, during the 1970s called into question what role, if any, they could play in metropolitan area economies. Today, many central cities of the Northeast and Midwest continue to be significant centers of commerce and employment in their metropolitan areas1. Over the past four to five decades, the manufactur... Read More

The term “jobless recovery” was coined in the aftermath of the 1990-91 recession because job growth following the end of that recession was quite slow. Job growth was also slow after the 2001 recession. A similar pattern in job growth has emerged for the most recent recession: At midyear in 2010, the economic recovery is under way, although again job growth is not nearly as robust as desi... Read More

On June 17 and 18, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois will co-host a program examining Illinois's current and future fiscal prospects. (To register and view complete agenda, visit the event page.) The conference comes at a time when the national recession has left states and local governments with significan... Read More

A combination of events surrounding the recent recession have left many state and local governments with gaping budgetary holes. A recent report by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that states face a combined budget deficit of $375 billion for fiscal years 2010 and 2011. Rather than raise taxes and cut spending cuts sufficiently, some governments, including I... Read More

The last two years represent an extraordinary period for the U.S. auto industry. Gasoline prices rose fast during the first six months of 2008, topping out at a national average of just over $4 per gallon. Following the bursting of the housing bubble and the financial markets crisis, the economy slipped deeper into recession. Financing constraints for consumers and vehicle dealers as well... Read More