Futurecast: Aggregate Findings of the 2024 East-Central Indiana Business Survey

By ​Oi Lin Cheung, Ph.D. Director of the Business and Economic Research Center and Professor of Finance, Indiana University East

​This article examines the recent performance of some key economic indicators and the 2025 economic outlook for the Richmond region, a region comprised of seven east-central Indiana counties: Fayette, Franklin, Henry, Randolph, Rush, Union and Wayne.

Manufacturing continues to be the region’s lead industry sector by employment, providing 12,894 jobs in 2024 Q1. Manufacturing is followed by health care and social services (8,262 jobs), retail trade (7,895 jobs) and accommodation and food services (4,635 jobs) (see Table 1).
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According to 2022 U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data,1 Wayne County had the largest population and earned the highest total income in the region: approximately 31.6% of the region’s total population (209,627 people) earned about the same proportion (31.4%) of the region’s total income ($10.46 billion). Following Wayne County, Henry County housed close to one-quarter (23.3%) of the region’s total population and earned more than one-fifth (21.7%) of the region’s total income. Franklin County ($55,675) and Rush County ($55,087) had the highest per capita personal income (PCPI) values in the region, both reaching more than 94% of Indiana’s state PCPI ($58,323) and more than 84% of U.S. PCPI ($65,470). While Randolph County (+1.21%) experienced the most percentage growth in PCPI, Franklin County (-0.24%) and Union County (-0.11%) actually recorded slight declines in PCPI between 2021 and 2022.

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Table 1: Employment by Industry