GDP is an important indicator used to gauge the health of a community’s economy. It represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced — or the size of a community’s economy — over a specific time period.
Overall, the Dayton area was among 292 metropolitan areas where real GDP increased in 2015, BEA reported. Nationwide, aggregate GDP for all U.S. metropolitan areas increased 2.5 percent in 2015 after increasing 2.3 percent in 2014.
The strongest performing sectors in the Dayton area were professional and business services, which saw output inch up 0.45 percentage points, and educational services, health care, and social assistance, which also saw output climb by nearly the same amount, according to BEA’s figures.
However, durable goods manufacturing, once the backbone of the Dayton-area economy, continued to contract, receding a combined 0.42 percent for durable and non-durable goods manufacturing, the report showed.
That includes automobile and auto parts manufacturing, which bounced back from the depths of the recession but is once again beginning to fade as an economic driver in the state and local area, according to Tom Jackson, an economist at IHS Global Insight.
“Ohio’s economic fortunes have long been tied to the automotive industry,” Jackson wrote in a recent report. “The state’s post-recession recovery received a huge boost from the revival of the domestic auto industry, with many major manufacturers making cars or buying components from factories in the state.
“The rate of growth in that industry is now slowing, though, which will limit future gains in that sector,” he added. “That underscores the need for the state to work to diversify its economic base. Looking ahead, Ohio’s growth is expected to remain positive, but still lag the national average.”
Still, Ohio’s economy has come a long way since the economic recovery began in 2009, based on the state’s growing household incomes and falling unemployment.
Since the recovery began, the state unemployment rate has been more than halved, falling from double-digit highs to 4.7 percent in August, according to the latest figures from the state jobs department. In Dayton metro area, the jobless rates fell even faster to 4.5 percent in July — the last month for which figures are available.
Meanwhile, median hourly wages for Ohio workers climbed to $16.61 last year after several years of decline, according to a recent report from Policy Matters Ohio.
Nationwide, median household income in the United States increased by 5.2 percent in 2015 to $56,516 — the first increase since 2007, and the biggest annual gain since 1967, the Census Bureau reported earlier this month.
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