Compared to peer areas, Wichita’s record of growth in gross domestic product is similar to that of job creation: Wichita performs poorly.
Looking at growth in GDP, Wichita lags behind the metropolitan statistical areas that we consider our peers (according to Visioneering Wichita), but not behind all the peer cities that I selected. Wichita does better than Springfield, Illinois, for example. I chose to include that as a peer metropolitan area because that’s the immediate past city that Gary Plummer worked in. He was president of that city’s Chamber of Commerce, and is now president of the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce.
Wichita also does better than Wichita Falls, Texas. That city is the immediate past home of Tim Chase. He was the head of Wichita Falls Economic Development Corporation. He’s now president of Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition, the primary organization in charge of economic development for the Wichita area.
What Wichita is missing
If the Wichita-area GDP grew faster, Wichita could generate many more jobs.
From 2001 to 2012, Wichita GDP grew at a rate of 0.734 percent per year, compounded annually. U.S. Metropolitan areas, as a whole, managed 1.571 percent growth over the same period. That seems like a small difference, just 0.837 percentage points. But over time, compounding adds up, so to speak. Here’s what it could amount to.
GDP in the Wichita MSA in 2012 was $29,644 million (current dollars). For that year the number of people working averaged 285,600, so each job contributed, on average, $103,796 to GDP.
A metropolitan area the size of Wichita that grew at the historic growth rate of all U.S. Metropolitan areas would be producing an additional $2,751 million in GDP in ten years, compared to a metropolitan area growing at Wichita’s historical rate. That could mean an additional 26,000 jobs.
