The State of the Region-The Inland Empire 2022
Authors: Manfred Keil, Robert Kleinhenz, Fernando Lozano, Ken Miller, Johannes Moenius, Barbara Sirotnik
Publisher: Lowe Institute of Political Economic, Claremont McKenna College
Date: March 2022
This report, issued in connection with our State of the Union Conference on March 29 at the Ontario Convention Center, consists of a short analysis of current national economic trends before moving on to the main part of our message for this event: the need for long term structural changes of the region.
In that section, we focus on two aspects of the general economic situation in our region:
- future structural changes needed in the Inland Empire for it to be a successful geographic area,
- its relative economic performance since the Great Recession and in particular during the Coronavirus recession and the subsequent recovery.
The report is therefore both forward and backward looking. On the one hand, we describe how the region survived the Coronavirus downturn that started in March 2020, and we look at the current state of the recovery. This is done both by analyzing Inland Empire data by itself and by looking at the Inland Empire’s relative performance compared to the rest of Southern California, the state, and the nation. Perhaps more importantly, the report examines future developments that are of importance to the region, and we discuss structural changes that may be needed to survive and thrive in the “new normal”.
