How Much Would $10/Week Boost Your Local Economy?
Filed Under: Do It Yourself, Susatainable Living on February 7, 2010
I was reading Hartke is Online, as I often do, and saw a story about local food economies and a study done by Virginia Tech about the economics of local food purchases. It blew my mind. The study’s talking points are in PDF form at this link, if you want to read it.
The study shows that if everyone in Virginia spend only $10 a week purchasing locally-sourced foods, the VA economy would be boosted by a whopping $1.65 billion (with a B, folks) annually.
The study basically breaks down each region of the State of Virginia by population and assumes $10/week in localized food purchases per household. The Central District would see about $162.6 million on its own while the more populous Northern District would see over half a billion!
I decided to do a rough version of this study for my own state, Wyoming. Here’s what I got:
Wyoming’s total population is 532,668 according to the U.S. Census’ 2008 estimates. There are an estimated 193,608 households in the state. That number is what matters, since the idea is to calculate $10 per household per week. That’s $520 per year per household.
So, the local economy would see a $100,676,160 (one hundred million+) boost. Wow.
What about your state? How much of a boost would this kind of localized spending do for where you live? The calculations are easy, you just need to go to the U.S. Census website, search for the quick facts on your state, and do what I did.
Post your state’s local economic boost in the comments!
