The economy in the greater Stevens Point‑Plover area continues to expand and grow, even when the national economy appears to be dead in the water. The local seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate, employment numbers, and construction figures have clearly outpaced those of the nation. Because of a diversified industry mix and an absence of past economic excesses, this area has weathered the stormy economic times as well as could have been expected. 

     The fact that this recession, while quite lengthy from a historic perspective, has been rather mild, explains to a great extent why the area has been relatively unaffected. The area, however, is not entirely without problems. The economy still remains linked to the rest of the nation and should the downturn in national activity deepen, this area will likely be affected to a greater extent than it has to date. And the agricultural sector of our economy is already facing difficult times. Specifically, dairy producers have suffered and will continue to suffer financial hardship unless milk prices increase. 

     Portage County employment presented in Table 7 shows that every industrial sector, except for trade, posted substantial gains in employment over the past twelve months. Manufacturing, services, construction, and government payrolls rose by 1400, 570, 460, and 1450. These gains were offset somewhat by the 550 decline in trade employment. In sum over 3000 positions have been created over the past twelve months in the Portage County area. Nonfarm employment now stands at 30,110 in the county. 

     A panel of local merchants, polled each and every quarter in order to ascertain the retail situation in our area, tells the CWERB that sales and store traffic were about the same as last year (Table 8). The average scores for these two categories are the lowest ever recorded from this usually optimistic group. Quite typically the responses for these two questions range in the mid 60's. Therefore, one could conclude, that there was less growth than anticipated in the retail sector. A similar statement can be made for the expected store traffic and sales responses. The mid 50's readings indicate that matters should improve somewhat, but there is much less optimism than in past periods. 

     Good news comes from the help wanted advertising index (Table 9). The index for the Stevens Point area is actually above last year's mark. The six point gain to 180 represents a 3.4 percent increase in job advertising. However, as expected, national help wanted advertising continues to lag behind prior period marks. The U.S. index fell by nineteen points or 17.6 percent from a year ago. For the Stevens Point area there are 1.8 jobs being advertised for every one job advertised in 1980. This is very significant because the population of the country has not increased by a similar multiplicative factor, meaning that the rise can not be accounted for or explained by simply attributing it to population growth. 

     The data in Table 10 and Table 11 show some deterioration in the area of family financial well‑being. Public Assistance claims in Table 10 increased by 95 on a monthly average basis from one year ago, a 67 percent increase. This continues a disturbing upward trend in new applications. However part of this increase can be explained by an eligibility change. Beginning in November 1991, people on SSI have become eligible to apply for food stamps, resulting in a jump in initial applications. Total caseload in Portage County increased by an average of 29 per month, an increase of 2.2 percent. 

     Table 11 shows that unemployment claims rose from 66 to 68 on a weekly average basis, a 3 percent gain. Further, total claims filed edged up by 23 from 142 to 165 per week for a 16 percent gain over last year. 

     Construction of residential housing in the greater Stevens Point area continued to boom during fourth quarter of 1991 (Table 12). All categories of new residential construction were up. New permits issued, the value of new construction, and the number of housing units jumped by 37.8 percent, 66.7 percent, and 14.1 percent. Only residential alteration activity was lower than last year by 5.5 percent. This activity parallels the generally strong housing market in our area and in Wisconsin as a whole, where home sales have actually increased over last year's marks. 

     Table 13 presents the very volatile and singular activity of business investment. No percentage changes are given because of these characteristics. The number of new nonresidential business permits issued in fourth quarter 1991 was 4. This compares with 15 during the same time period in 1990. The estimated value of new nonresidential construction was pegged at $3 million. Business alteration permits issued rose from 49 in 1990 to 64 in 1991 with a value of approximately $2.4 million. 

     Table 14 presents this quarter's financial statistics for Portage County. Very good news for the area is that bank deposits, a measure of local income and liquidity, grew by $11 million or 3.4 percent, outpacing the rate of inflation over the same time period. Further the data suggest that bank lending must have been quite brisk during fourth quarter as loan activity rose sharply by $12.9 million or 5.3 percent. These facts continue to support the observation that there is little evidence of a credit crunch in the local area.