Real Gross Domestic Product expanded by 2.3 percent over the past year. Another sign the economy expanded during Third Quarter was the 3.7 percent jump in output on the part of the nation's factories. Short-term interest rates are slightly lower than a year ago and the Consumer Price Index expanded by a predictable 3.0 percent. Thus, the national economy continues to move forward on a reasonably stable growth path.
 

     Incredibly low unemployment rates are the big story for this quarter. Seasonally unadjusted rates stand at around 2.5 percent for the Central Wisconsin area. Continued economic expansion over the past decade has pushed rates inexorably lower throughout the region. The same scenario of course holds true for the state of Wisconsin. The unemployment rate for the entire state is now down to just 2.7 percent.
 

     As was alluded to earlier, employment growth has been, for the most part, a continuous affair for over a decade in the state and region. Indeed, this quarter's results show a similar result as Central Wisconsin payrolls expanded by 2.3 percent. Further, the counties experienced employment change which range from modest to robust. As a matter of record, the quarter's growth in our region exceeded that of the state and nation.
 

     The overall improvement in regional payrolls translates into gains for the various industrial sectors of Central Wisconsin. The manufacturing and service sectors added the most people, 700 and 1,500 positions respectively. In sum, the total number of jobs increased from 134.6 thousand to 137.9 thousand over the past twelve months or 2.5 percent.
 

     County sales tax distributions are an indicator of the health of a local economy. Besides indicating current economic well‑being, expenditures on goods and services help to create additional jobs and income in an area. Thus, it is important to monitor this .type of data. Both Marathon and Portage counties experienced a surge in sales tax distributions. While the data is imperfect, in the sense there can be timing problems in associating economic activity to a particular time period and not all economic transactions are subject to taxation, the value of the data to policy makers is unquestionable.
 

     Regional business executives in the Third Quarter poll indicate that national and local conditions are modestly better than one year ago. However, their sense is that the national, state, and industry economic conditions will not change to any great degree in the months ahead. That is, no significant change is foreseen by this group in the modest growth scenario.
 

     The Wausau area economy and community continue to develop. Almost every measure of economic vitality was above last years counterpart. Since the mid‑1980s to 1996 the area economy has expanded nonstop with only the briefest of interruptions taking place in the early 1990s. Thus, like the nation and state, we remain in an unusual time from a historic standpoint. That is, over the past decade we have experienced an almost unbroken period of moderate economic growth with low inflation.