El Paso Inc. recently published a column written by Robert W. Gilmer Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, El Paso Branch and Roberto Coronado Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, El Paso Branch. In the column, they mentioned the region's economic evolution, giving credit to the growing life sciences community.
Here is what they wrote:
In the 1970s, El Paso’s economy was dominated by low-wage apparel, especially by makers of men’s slacks like Billy the Kid, Farah and Levi-Strauss.
Today’s El... [more]
Lone Star metros have dominated every phase of the Great Recession, but there's trouble on the horizon for some of Texas' strongest cities
Wikipedia
Welcome to the third phase of the Great Recession. Phase One was the housing collapse, felt most heavily in those cities along the Sun Belt that rode the real estate wave in the 2000s.
Phase Two was the stimulus recovery. Cities... [more]
On the national stage, Texas' economy is its best selling point. But this so-called "Texas Miracle" doesn't extend statewide: In the border region, unemployment reaches as high as 13.2 percent, and the median income is 30 percent lower than the statewide average.
The Rio Grande Valley has been "probably hardest hit of any area in the state" by the national recession, said Tom Pauken, chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission.
“In many of these counties the working... [more]
El Paso and Ciudad Juárez lie together uncomfortably like an estranged couple, surrounded on all sides by mountains and desert. The cities are separated by the thin trickle of the Rio Grande, which flows through concrete channels, built to put an end to the river’s natural habit of changing course and muddying boundaries. One side is Texas; the other, Mexico. The border’s way of life — its business, legitimate and otherwise — has always relied... [more]
El Paso's economy continued to grow slowly in the first quarter, but it grew better than the economies of most other large metro areas in the country, the Brooking Institution's latest MetroMonitor report shows.
El Paso's economic output increased 0.9 percent in the first quarter. That growth rate, the same rate as in the fourth quarter, ranked 10th among the nation's 100 largest metro areas.
Houston ranked first with a growth rate of 3.3 percent in the... [more]
El Paso's job growth in recent years is third best among 398 metro areas in the nation, and the best among midsize cities, according to a new ranking done for Forbes.com.
"El Paso like other cities in Texas is doing reasonably well," said Joel Kotkin, an expert on economic and social trends who co-wrote "The Best Cities for Jobs" report for Forbes. He also is executive editor and operator of NewGeography.com and a presidential fellow at... [more]
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Here are smaller legal markets that pay big-city bucks
EL PASO, TEXAS
Median salary: $112,030
Average salary: $132,240
Population growth since 2000: 10.6 percent
Situated just across the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico, El Paso County's employed lawyers out-earned their peers in Baltimore, Cincinnati and Salt Lake City.
The absence of a nearby law school and a relatively small bar of roughly 1,800 lawyers may account for the stats, says El Paso Bar Association President... [more]
Hispanics make up 82 percent of the El Paso County population -- a 4 percent increase over the previous census period -- according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
Experts said the increase in the Hispanic population may be attributed to several factors, including birth rates and immigration.
"Latinos have a higher fertility rate than some other groups, and while migration has slowed down, it hasn't stopped, and then we also have the situation in Juárez that may... [more]
Despite being located across the border from one of the deadliest cities in the world, El Paso is the safest large city in the United States, according to rankings released Sunday. Though the city has been ranked in the top three each year since 1997, this is the first time El Paso has taken the top spot for having the l owest crime rate among cities of more than 500,000 population in the... [more]
In most parts of the United States, Americans have lost hope that their homes will restore their value or that unemployment will drop significantly anytime soon. But in the westernmost corner of Texas, there's more than hope -- there's an unlikely building boom happening. The U.S. military base Fort Bliss, covering an area larger than Rhode Island, has become one of America's largest military installations, and that's having a dramatic impact on an otherwise depressed... [more]
