Springfield ranked in the middle of a study measuring the fastest-growing economies across the country.
Conducted by personal finance website
WalletHub.com, the list places Springfield at No. 238 out of the 515 cities examined.
Cities were ranked by weighing 10 metrics: population growth; working-age population growth; poverty rate; median household income growth; unemployment rate; job growth; ratio of full- to part-time jobs; regional GDP growth per capita; business growth; and media home price growth. Cities were scored on a 100-point scale based on socioeconomic terms 2008-14.
Springfield earned a score of 48.4, just behind Bloomington, Ind., and just ahead of Ponoma, Calif. Columbia was the highest ranking Missouri city on the list with its score of 61.5. The No. 1 city is Odessa, Texas, scoring 79.5, while the lowest ranked city is Carson, Calif., 27.7.
In the midsize cities category - defined as 100,000 to 300,000 people - Springfield ranked 114th out of over 240 cities. Odessa also was No. 1 in that category.
From 2008 through 2014, Springfield’s:
• population growth was 1.4 percent;
• working-age population growth, 1.5 percent;
• poverty rate decrease, 6.5 percent;
• median household income growth, (1.4 percent);
• unemployment rate decrease, 12.6 percent;
• job growth, 1.8 percent;
• ratio of full-time to part-time jobs increase, 1.3 percent;
• regional GDP growth per capita, (0.04 percent);
• business growth, 0.2 percent; and
• mean home price growth, 0.2 percent.
