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The Consumer Price Index is used to calculate inflation, or the change in price of a basket of goods and services, as it impacts consumers; whereas, the Producer Price Index measures changes in selling prices, thereby expressing price changes from the perspective of the seller who produces a particular commodity.
A slide presentation updated with August 2017 data shows the Midwest inflation rate dropped slightly from July to August for larger urban metropolitan areas. The smaller urban metropolitan areas noticed a 0.21% increase and the non-metropolitan urban areas saw an increase of 0.11%.
The Producer Price Index data shows that prices in the United States have increased from August 2016 to August 2017 for aircraft (0.7 percent), natural gas (14.2 percent), sorghum (6.2%), crude petroleum (18.9%) and wheat (13.8 percent). During that same time period, the index decreased for slaughter livestock (-0.9%).
Industries in the computer and electronic product manufacturing subsector include establishments that manufacture computers, computer peripherals, communications equipment, and similar electronic products and establishments that manufacture components for such products. The design and use of integrated circuits and the application of highly specialized miniaturization technologies are common elements in the production process in this subsector.
In Kansas, computer and electronic product manufacturing is generally a high-wage industry, with the exception of semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing.
The unemployment rate for Kansas, as a whole, increased from June 2017 to July 2017. The Wichita MSA saw the largest increase of 0.4 percentage points, while the Topeka and Manhattan MSAs both saw an increase of 0.3 percentage points. The Lawrence MSA saw the smallest increase of just 0.2 percentage points.
A slide presentation is available with additional employment and unemployment data for Kansas and its four metro areas.
The Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), measures regional differences in the cost of consumer goods and services, excluding taxes and non-consumer expenditures, for professional and managerial households in the top income quintile.
The three Kansas metropolitan areas included in the index, averaged 4.4 percent below the national average when weighted by population.
To subscribe to the Cost of Living Index report, or to learn more about The Council for Community and Economic Research, visit their website.
From May to June, the WSU Current Conditions Index decreased by 0.3 percent. The Current Conditions Index increased year-to-year by 1.2 percent from June 2016 to June 2017. In addition, the Leading Index is forecasting a 0.09 percent decrease in economic activity over the next six months.
There was an average of 13,202 unemployed people in the Wichita metropolitan area in the second quarter of 2017, approximately 43 percent of whom collected unemployment insurance benefits. In the second quarter of 2017, there were approximately 5,685 people, age 16 and over, who collected unemployment insurance benefits. That is essentially unchanged from the first quarter of 2017.
In the second quarter of 2017, four industries accounted for 59 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries in the Wichita area; manufacturing, construction, administrative and support and waste management and remediation services, and health care.
Read the full Wichita unemployment insurance beneficiaries report.
Between the first and second quarters of 2017, the general level of misery experienced by people in the United States and Kansas decreased and remained below the 2016 level. This can be attributed to the decrease in the unemployment rate and inflation.
The level of misery in Wichita is equal to the national level, all other areas in Kansas are below the national level.
The Misery Index, as calculated by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research (CEDBR), includes the following components:
- The Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
- The House Price Index (HPI) from the Federal Housing Finance Agency
- Unemployment Rates (UR) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Read the complete second quarter report.
The lawn and garden store sector includes stores that primarily sell nursery or garden products that are grown elsewhere and stores that primarily sell outdoor lawn and garden power equipment.
- Total lawn and garden store employment in Kansas was approximately 2,300 in 2013, with employment of five in the median county in the state in this sector. Johnson County, Sedgwick County, and Riley County had the highest total employment and sales in the sector in the state.
- Thirty-one Kansas counties were identified as not having any establishments classified as lawn and garden store establishments in the dataset, which could indicate either a lack of these stores in those areas, or establishments classified in another retail sector could also be providing lawn and garden products. Twenty-six of these counties had a population less than 5,000 people.
In both Kansas and the United States, both the employment-population ratio and labor force participation rate have declined sharply during the recession in 2008, and the ratio has remained well below pre-recession levels for both geographies.- The age-reweighted employment-population ratio for Kansas fell by 1.9 percent from 2005 to 2015.
- Almost all of the decline in the U.S. employment-population ratio from 2005 to 2015 can be explained by changing age demographics, while changing age demographics can only explain half of the decline in Kansas’ employment-population ratio.
- The reweighted employment-population ratio of other Midwestern states such as Iowa and Nebraska tended to outperform the national average from 2005 to 2015, while Kansas’ did not.
The U.S. Census Bureau has published their population projections for the entire United States from 2015 to 2060 , and they project that the United States population will grow from 321.4 million to 416.8 million in that period. This represents 29.6 percent growth for the U.S. population, which is projected to expand more rapidly than the Kansas population.
Both the Kansas and the U.S. populations are projected to have positive growth rates throughout this period, with growth generally slowing over much of this period as well.
