Worcester County, as an outlier, sees economic spending up from start of 2020
Photo | Grant Welker
Parkway, a restaurant on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, is among those that have re-opened for outdoor seating as coronavirus case numbers have dropped.
It was the end of March, coronavirus-related closures were freshly in place, and economic activity in Worcester County was down by one-third.
Perhaps improbably, though, consumer spending in Worcester County has not only rebounded from that low point, but it has surpassed economic activity levels from the start of 2020, according to the data research firm Opportunity Insights, which uses a series of online purchasing trackers to gauge activity. Worcester County was up 4.2% as of Aug. 2.
Worcester County is the only one in the state — the five smallest counties aren't included — to be in positive economic activity territory for the year.
There is a major caveat to Worcester County's relative consumer boost: it doesn't appear to be going to local mom-and-pops. Small business revenue in the county remains down 18% from the start of the year (compared to 32% statewide), and 23% of its small businesses were recorded as closed (similar to the 22% statewide rate).
The Boston metropolitan area, where consumer spending fell by 54% at its worst in the spring, was still down 6.3% in early August, according to Opportunity Insights. Massachusetts as a whole was down 4.4%. Across New England, few others were in positive territory, including Washington County in southern Rhode Island and the two counties in New Hampshire that include the state's largest three cities, Manchester, Nashua and Concord.
Nationally, consumer spending is down 8% from the start of the year. It was down 33% at the end of March.
The consumer spending silver lining for Worcester County — whatever may explain its outlier status — comes despite other data points showing severe economic pain during the pandemic locally.
The Worcester metropolitan area's unemployment rate in June was 15.8%, among the worst 6% of nearly 400 metro areas across the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fitchburg, Leominster, Gardner, and other regions of northern Worcester County, which were broken out separately, had an unemployment rate of 18.7%, the seventh worst nationally.
The online business site Yelp said in July it counted 143 businesses across the Worcester metro area on its site as permanently closed, and another 104 temporarily shuttered.
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