Saying it is more important than ever for the Hudson Valley to view itself regionally, the Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach at SUNY New Paltz, working with experts in various fields outside academia, has created a well-being report indexing eight areas that can help the region guide itself to a prosperous future.
“The overall goal was to identify economic, environmental and social measures we could track over time so we could get measures about our regional well-being,” said KT Tobin Flusser, assistant director of CRREO at SUNY New Paltz, who helped lead the 18-month study. “We tried to draw from multiple arenas and perspectives. We integrated the community into it, so it wasn”™t just academics.”
The report, released June 2, will be widely distributed “to identify opportunities, highlight successes and bring attention to where improvement is needed.” It will be updated annually, using an index from one to 100 that is compiled based on regional economic and social indicators, said Flusser, who said ”“ “Believe it or not” ”“ the first study found the regional well-being indicator at 50.
The report focuses on the four counties of Ulster, Orange, Dutchess and Sullivan, with a combined population exceeding 1 million and, at 3,715 square miles, possessing a geographic land area larger than Delaware.
The work highlights eight factors for regional well-being: economy, education, environment, community and equity, governance and health, arts and culture, and safety. Ulster fared best at a score of 57 on the index. Dutchess was 51; Orange was 47 and Sullivan was 41. According to the report, comparable New York counties have a mean index score of 46.
But economically, the region did not fare as well as most New York counties, except for Dutchess County. With an economic index of 60, Dutchess exceeded the 58 of comparable counties statewide, Orange attained a score of 58 on the economic index; Ulster was 45; and Sullivan scored 37. The index measured income, costs, jobs and poverty.
Thirty-nine percent of households in the four counties earned less than $50,000 annually and 28 percent of households earned more than $100,000 annually. Orange County had the highest median income at $71,674; Dutchess was at $69,617; Ulster at $54,854 and Sullivan at $46,553. Ten percent of households in the region had income below the poverty line.
Researchers found that when income was matched alongside costs, exactly half of the region”™s household incomes went to cover housing and transportation costs.
Flusser pointed out, however, that the study started in 2008 and used economic data from that date or earlier, which were the most recent data available. She said it would be interesting to see how the regional economy fared in the wake of the Great Recession. And she said that with the baseline data in place from this first index, researchers will expand the scope of their data-gathering, going back five years to provide a comparison over time.
The region is lagging in job creation compared with the rest of the state. While statewide jobs are being created at a rate of .79 jobs for every job seeker, in the four counties that figure is .55 jobs for every would-be worker. Orange is best off in this regard, at .66 per job seeker; Dutchess is at .57; Sullivan is at .49; and Ulster is at .37.
Of those employed, 21 percent worked for government in the region; 15 percent were in retail trade jobs; 15 percent also were in health care jobs; 8 percent in manufacturing; 7 percent in food service or accommodations; and 4 percent in construction.
The region spent $17 per capita on economic development, about 20 percent less than normal in comparable counties. In 2008, tourism accounted for $1.7 billion in the four counties.
