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Greater Washington Ranks #1 for Highest Real Income according to U.S. News & World Report

Greater Washington has the highest real income and spending power among the top 12 major metropolitan regions in the US, according to a recent analysis commissioned by U.S. News and World Report that adjusts median income with the cost of living across the country.

 

The Atlantic and The New York Times 

recently highlighted Greater Washington’s economic value, high real income, first-in-the-US workforce talent (and continued powerful talent attraction), and economic resilience (and not just because of the government).

  • According to The Atlantic, "Greater Washington DC really stands out. It is a big diverse metro… It is a human-capital magnet… it's worth paying a good deal more attention to what's behind greater Washington's capacity to strike such a nice balance between clustering and affordability…” Read More
  • The New York Times also featured a special section outlining that "the gap widens between the [Greater] D.C. economy, with its robust housing and job markets, and the rest of America. The Greater D.C. area is much more than a government town. It is a center for high-tech and media, software and biotech…it has large concentrations of scientists and engineers, software developers and mathematicians… The Greater D.C. metro is an economic powerhouse… And make no mistake about it, [Greater] D.C. is a talent magnet.” Read More
  • The Atlantic reports that " 'Silicon Valley of the East' is [Greater] Washington, DC." Read More
  • The Atlantic also reports that on housing appreciation, unemployment and real household income, "Greater Washington, DC flew in the face of the national trend" - in a good way. Read More
 

Greater Washington Ranks First on List of America's Top 25 Cities for Recent College Graduates

“Greater Washington D.C. comes in first...with a job market that includes everything from government and Fortune 500 companies, to think tanks, start-ups, and NGOs," according to The Atlantic. "It's a great place for smart, civically minded new grads who might want to test out a wide variety of career options.” 223 U.S. metropolitan areas were ranked according to factors that indicated how active and high-quality their job markets are. Data was pulled from the latest edition of the American Community Survey.

 

"On nearly every measure, the capital is exceptional." - The Economist

According to The Economist, while most of America frets over a jobless recovery, the Greater Washington's economy is booming. Washington’s unemployment rate is easily the lowest among America’s large metropolitan areas. Employment in Greater Washington has risen by about 84,000 over the past year — roughly 6% of America’s job growth, in a region with just 2% of its population.

 

Gallup Ranks Greater Washington First in Wellbeing among Large Metro Areas

Greater Washington residents had the highest wellbeing among the nation's 52 largest metropolitan areas, those with 1 million or more residents, according to the recently conducted Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey.

 

Greater Washington Initiative Releases Information & Communication Technology Industry Report

The Greater Washington Initiative has released its Information & Communication Technology Industry Report – the fourth in a series of exclusive research about the Greater Washington region’s assets and competitive advantages in this innovative and important target industry sector.

 

Forbes.com Ranks Greater Washington #1 Healthiest Labor Market in U.S.

According to Forbes.com, "As 2011 gets underway, [Greater] Washington, D.C.--flush with government and government-supporting jobs--has the healthiest labor market among major U.S. metro areas. The nation's capital has an unemployment rate of just 6%, according to the latest data. That's the lowest among the country's largest 50 metros, and 3.8 percentage points below the national average."

 

Dow Jones’ MarketWatch Ranks Greater Washington #1 for Business in 2010

According to MarketWatch.com, "An ability to be resilient in tough times, aided by its proximity to the world’s most powerful government helped vault Washington D.C. to the top of MarketWatch’s 2010 list of U.S. Best Cities for Business.”

 

Bloomberg’s Businessweek.com ranks the Greater Washington region first

in the US as the “best place to start over”, citing employer optimism, a low unemployment rate, and a consistent rating as among the strongest job markets.

 

The Milken Institute’s 2010 Best-Performing Cities Index ranked Greater Washington

as the top performer among the 10 largest metros and an impressive sixth in the overall rankings. According to the Institute: “The Best-Performing Cities Index was designed to measure objectively which U.S. metropolitan areas are most successful in terms of job creation and retention, the quality of jobs being produced, and overall economic performance. Specifically, it pinpoints where jobs are being created and maintained, where wages and salaries are increasing, and where economies and businesses are growing and thriving.” The index allows businesses and other interested parties to gain insight into the relative performance of metropolitan regions across the US. Download Report