EWU Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis

EWU Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis Research center for all things regional public policy and economic analysis housed at EWU.

The BLS released the results of the 2025 Time Use Survey giving us important insights into how Americans spend their day...
08/04/2026

The BLS released the results of the 2025 Time Use Survey giving us important insights into how Americans spend their day. Interestingly at 2 pm, what many consider in the midst of a typical work-day, less than one-third of American adults are "working." At 8 pm, more than half of us are engaging in leisure. And notice the relatively smaller portion of time devoted to family-care.

https://www.bls.gov/tus/

On Thursday, the BEA released June numbers for disposable personal income (DPI) and personal consumption expenditures. A...
08/04/2026

On Thursday, the BEA released June numbers for disposable personal income (DPI) and personal consumption expenditures. Across the US, people continue to spend more than they are bringing in, resulting in the decline in savings (black line). In June, DPI increased 0.2 percent but consumption spending increased 0.3 percent.

https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/personal-income-and-outlays-june-2026

Our awesome student interns are vital to our success and we appreciate them today and every day. They work incredibly ha...
07/30/2026

Our awesome student interns are vital to our success and we appreciate them today and every day. They work incredibly hard at managing and updating data, making / editing cool graphs, and writing analyses.

Graying of the Evergreen State: The oldest (65+) age group's share of the population in the state has increased 7 percen...
07/28/2026

Graying of the Evergreen State: The oldest (65+) age group's share of the population in the state has increased 7 percentage points from 11% to 18% over the past 25 years. In contrast, the youngest (17 and under) age group's share of the population has fallen from 25% to 23%. Across the state, counties are seeing a similar trend.

Head over to our website and check out our various county trend projects to see how they might differ with respect to the aging of their communities.

https://inside.ewu.edu/ippea/community_trends/

The BEA finally released data on GDP by county. In Washington, there is a big difference between the economies on the ea...
07/26/2026

The BEA finally released data on GDP by county. In Washington, there is a big difference between the economies on the east and west side of the state -- not just in composition, but also SIZE.

King County (Seattle) is responsible for over half (55%) of the state economy. When combined with neighboring Pierce & Snohomish, the three counties comprise 70% of the state total GDP.

In contrast, east of the Cascades, Spokane has the state's fourth largest county economy and comprises nearly 5% of state GDP.

Source: BEA

On our various county trends projects, we like to benchmark the counties against the state average. And our graphs are i...
07/25/2026

On our various county trends projects, we like to benchmark the counties against the state average. And our graphs are interactive, so you can turn on or off any of the individual sectors or locations.

Of the four largest sectors for the Spokane county economy (by employment), government continues to offer the highest average annual wage of over $80,500, according to data recently released by the QCEW. The manufacturing sector has seen the strongest growth recently, nearly approaching the $78,500 annually.

To read more and even download the data, head over to Spokane Trends or to IPPEA to see how some of the other counties compare.

https://www.spokanetrends.org/
https://inside.ewu.edu/ippea/

We just released our Grant County Trends Blog for July covering recently updated indicators for the county such as popul...
07/24/2026

We just released our Grant County Trends Blog for July covering recently updated indicators for the county such as population growth, water production, average annual wage, housing affordability and more.

Go check it out and while there, make sure to subscribe so that the next blog gets delivered right to your e-mail.

https://www.grantcountytrends.org/newsletter/

DID YOU SEE the latest version of the Spokane Trends Blog we just sent out TODAY! Check out our coverage of regional pri...
07/23/2026

DID YOU SEE the latest version of the Spokane Trends Blog we just sent out TODAY! Check out our coverage of regional price parity to see how much higher prices are locally than the nation. We also talk about graduation rates, educational attainment and median household income broken down by race/ethnicity.

Don't forget you can subscribe so that the full blog will get delivered right to your e-mail.

https://spokanetrends.org/newsletter/subscribe-unsubscribe/

Even though our offices are in Spokane County, we love following what our friends over on the "west side" are up to. We ...
07/22/2026

Even though our offices are in Spokane County, we love following what our friends over on the "west side" are up to. We just released the latest edition of the Skagit County Trends Blog where we feature population growth, graduation rates and post-secondary enrollments, renters feeling housing-burdened, and more. Check out the interactive blog that allows you to drill down more into the data at our Skagit County Trends site.

https://skagitcountytrends.org/blog/

Over the summer, our student interns, such as Moon, are able to put in more hours at the office and we are happy to have...
07/17/2026

Over the summer, our student interns, such as Moon, are able to put in more hours at the office and we are happy to have them! Head on over to any of our county trends projects to see which demographic, economic, health, education, housing or transportation indicators they might have recently updated.

https://inside.ewu.edu/ippea/community_trends/

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