Businesses and Consumers Slack off as Spring Sets in
Tallahassee, FL – The Tallahassee Economic Index (TEI), a measure of the city’s economic growth, recently released numbers ending March 2019. Following a 7.42 point breakthrough in February, the Index saw a setback of 4.42 points from 49.38 to 44.96 in March.
“The local economy took a bit of a breather in March, after two months of substantial acceleration. This month’s Index reading broke the prior two month’s trend due to multiple inputs showing material year-over-year declines,” said TEI Founder Brett F. Ewing. “One of the indicators we are watching closely is New Construction Building Permits. This input closed out the year with a meager 10 permits in December, but has rebounded to 51 permits in March.”
“The Ides of March did not fare well for Tallahassee’s economy with this month’s report looking rather bleak. Business spending was especially weak, and unlike prior months real estate numbers didn’t provide much help,” said Lance Mitchell, Director of Research at the TEI. “One of the most troubling data points in the Index continues to be realtor sales, which on a seasonally adjusted basis, has been flat or negative in nine out of the past 12 months. The slowdown effects many industries across the economy, but with mortgage rates dropping, we will be watching to see if it can pick back up for the rest of 2019.”
Highlights:
- New Construction Building Permits improved 50 percent MoM, and two percent YoY
- Median Sales Prices of Single Family Homes deteriorated 5.83 percent from February, but rose .22 percent from March of 2018
- Initial Claims for Reemployment Assistance dropped 6.64 percent MoM, and 10.49 percent YoY
- Airport Traffic climbed 16.14 percent from last month, and continued its ascent moving up 5.64 percent from one year ago
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Over the past five years, there’s been over 1,800 H-1B visa applications submitted for jobs in Tallahassee [1]. That doesn’t include OPT visas, which, in a college town, are going to be at least as numerous as the H-1Bs, but more likely closer to double that number.
The H-1Bs alone constitute almost 1% of the total Tallahassee population, and those jobs have a median salary of $72,000 per year. The remittances being sent to the foreign guest worker’s home country are going to be huge. All that money is sucked right out of the local economy. (Also consider that employees on OPT visas don’t have to pay social security or medicare taxes, further burdening those struggling systems.)
[1] https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=&city=tallahassee&year=All+Years
Probably from all that FBI attention to local official. Nothing slows down an economy as when the palms run out of grease.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bubble bursting in the student apartment housing
and the high end commercial real estate market in Tallahassee soon.