Heartland headache: Wichita's economy won't rebound until 2012

Despite Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill boondoggle, it's going to be a while before we return to the level of employment we enjoyed in late 2007, assuming Wichita, Kansas is a model for the rest of the nation.

And it could be.

From the Wichita Eagle:

Green shoots. That's what President Obama calls the first tentative signs of recovery: The upswing in the stock market, the bump in consumer confidence.

More...

Jobs are the last thing to go in a plunge and the last to come back in a recovery. That's why companies are still laying people off 18 months after the official start of the recession in December 2007.

A new forecast from economic forecasting firm IHS Global Insight predicts that Wichita will regain the number of jobs it had at its employment peak by the second quarter of 2012.

Some analysts say that seems realistic, while others say that may be too optimistic.

The Eagle goes on to explain that Wichita is somewhere in the middle among other cities regarding job losses. My guess is that Chicago is in the middle too, Detroit is worse off, and Washington isn't suffering too much in on the jobs front.

Because of Obama's top down approach of managing the economy, a lot more of those "green shoots" will be found in Washington DC.

Wichita, an aircraft manufacturing hub, will naturally add jobs for people who will make airplanes as the economy recovers--and according to the IHS Global Insight the economy in Kansas' largest city won't fully rebound for three years.

But those Washington jobs will go to folks who manufacture...uh, well, nothing.

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