Study: Greene County accounts for 4.7% of Missouri economy

A study released by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center found Greene County made up nearly 4.7 percent of the state’s economy last year.

Greene ranked fifth among the 115 Missouri counties by economic share.

The top five counties were:
    •    St. Louis, 19.4 percent;
    •    Jackson, 11.4 percent;
    •    St. Charles, 6.9 percent;
    •    the city of St. Louis, 5.1 percent; and
    •    Greene, 4.7 percent.

For the study, MERIC — a division of the state Department of Economic Development — examined counties’ 2015 personal income and personal income share; 2016 population and population share; and 2016 employment and employment share. Officials combined the data into an averaged percentage.

Greene County’s results were:
    •    2015 personal income: $11.2 billion;
    •    2015 personal income share: 4.4 percent;
    •    2016 population: 288,690;
    •    2016 population share: 4.7 percent;
    •    2016 employment: 145,401;
    •    2016 employment share: 4.9 percent.

The counties in the Springfield metropolitan statistical area were 0.03 to 0.39 percent in Dallas County; 0.4 to 0.91 percent in Polk and Webster counties; 0.92 to 3 percent in Christian County; and 3.01 to 6.88 percent in Greene County. The county with the smallest share of the state’s economy was Worth County, at 0.03 percent, according to MERIC.