Natural State News

The Arkansas Economist, a economic forum sponsored by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, recently published the annual Arkansas Personal Consumption Expenditures which showed high levels of spending during the pandemic.

Personal consumption expenditures decreased nationally from 2019 to 2020 by 2.6%, according to the Arkansas Economist. However, personal consumption expenditure spending in Arkansas actually grew by less than 0.1% during the same time period. Idaho, Utah and Montana were the only other states to show increases for the year.

"The data for Arkansas reaffirm our observation that Arkansas consumers maintained relatively high levels of spending during the depths of the pandemic," Michael Pakko, state economic forecaster, said.

While unemployment in Arkansas' metro areas did increase during the pandemic, the unemployment rate in the state has dropped significantly since the initial onslaught of the pandemic restrictions. The state's metro areas have shown continued improvement. 

"Five of the eight metro areas covering parts of Arkansas saw the unemployment rate decline by 0.1 percentage point in August, matching the statewide change," Pakko wrote in a Sept. 29 Arkansas Economist web post.

Fayetteville, the metro area growing fastest before the pandemic, showed the most recovery while trying to move past the economic downturn, according to Arkansas Economist.