Economic forecasts,
for the greater Seattle area.
Consider us your research center, providing you answers in easy to understand language and charts.
Established in 1993, The Puget Sound Economic Forecaster is a quarterly report published by the Center for Economic and Business Research at Western Washington University which acquired the publication in 2017 from its founders, Conway Pedersen Economics, Inc.
The report and website are designed for business executives, marketing directors, investors, government managers, and researchers who need a professional and objective view on the economic prospects for the Puget Sound region (King County, Kitsap County, Pierce County, and Snohomish County).
Our goal is to provide accurate and well-reasoned forecasts for the region as well as clear and insightful observations on important developments in the economy.
In-Depth Regional Economic Outlook
The first issue of the
Puget Sound Economic Forecaster,
a quarterly report,
was published in December 1993.
Each report contains a summary forecast, in-depth discussion of the regional outlook, forecasts and analyses of retail sales and construction and real estate, a special topic (e.g., China and Population Change), a detailed forecast table, and the Puget Sound Index of Leading Economic Indicators.
To facilitate research and analysis on the regional economy, every issue of the regional economic report is archived as a downloadable PDF file in the Subscriber Area. A comprehensive Subject Index of the archived reports has been developed to aid in the retrieval of information.
Reports are posted to the web site one to two weeks before the printed copy is mailed.
Sample Report – Data, Trade and Trends [Volume 27, Number 2, June 2019]
With thoughts of the long warm days of summer on our minds, we have found ourselves interrupted pondering about the price of avocados and how the latest round of tariff threats that may impact retail sales and the general economy overall. Thoughts of spending time at the lake or river have found us considering stream flows and how the change in our climate may impact all of the people and businesses that rely on water in one way or another. Daydreams of patio and deck BBQs have caused us to reflect on changes in house prices and the sudden growth in sales outside of the King County – is it more commuters or are jobs moving? Will the Seattle to Everett corridor retain its worst traffic in the nation ranking? Evidently, economists are bad at not thinking about things. All of the above is ahead in this edition of the Forecaster plus a better understanding of workforce participation and the state forecast. We will just call it the beach edition.
Additional Features
In addition to the Quarterly Report,
we regularly publish
Additional Feature Reports
Breaking News
What We Are Following in the News
Prices paid by US consumers probably inched up marginally last month after falling for the first time in six years, a welcome tempering in recent war-driven inflationary pressures. The closely watched consumer price index is seen rising 0.1% in July following a 0.4% decline in the prior month, based on the median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists ahead of Wednesday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics release. Excluding fuel and food, the so-called core measure probably rose 0.2% from the previous month. The core CPI is estimated to have risen 2.5% from July 2025, the smallest annual increase since February.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is sending signals that he’s eager to keep bond yields from spiking higher after long-term rates surged to a 19-year high. Bessent has taken steps such as staging the US’s first currency intervention to prop up the yen since 1998 and making a subtle change to his department’s guidance on bond sales. The moves indicate that Bessent is attempting to stem the ascent of long-term bond rates, which have climbed due to persistent inflation and nearly $2 trillion annual budget deficits. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-09/behind-bessent-moves-wall-street-sees-sign-of-bond-market-angst?cmpid=BBD081026_NEF&utm_campaign=nef&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=260810&utm_c
Bloomberg: In retrospect, Friday’s US jobs report — which showed a 23,000 contraction in payrolls against the median economist expectation of an 80,000 increase — really ought not to have come as such a surprise. Rewind the tape by a year, and the July 2025 report undershot almost all projections, and lopped off 258,000 jobs from the previous two months on top of that. Go back another year, and, again, payrolls were weaker than all but one forecast in Bloomberg’s survey, with another downward revision for prior months. So it’s shaping up as a third straight summertime US jobs bust. This time, economists highlighted that a 60,000 slide in local government employment was likely due in part to authorities running out of federal assistance that had allowed for expanded teaching staff after the Covid shock — together with the cyclical pattern of educators falling off of payrolls during mid-year holidays. The question for Federal Reserve policymakers debating whether higher rates will be needed to rein in too-high inflation is whether 2026 will follow 2024, when job growth bounced back in the fall, or 2025, when it trended down into year-end. “This slowdown could in part be a repeat of a similar seasonal dynamic observed during the prior couple summers — in which case we should expect stronger numbers in a few months,” Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase, wrote in a note to clients. In each of the last two years, the summer job weakening spurred the Fed into a brief cycle of rate cuts. Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at Santander US Capital Markets, argues that policymakers were “fooled” by the data and “panicked” by easing in the past two Septembers. Now, with core US inflation still well above the Fed’s 2% target, Stanley expects the central bank will look through the jobs data. He also notes private-sector payrolls look in decent shape — up 40,000 on average the past three months, not far from the 50,000 rough estimate many economists have for the number of new jobs thought to be needed to absorb new entrants to the labor force.
Iran over the weekend issued a statement saying it would only reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. lifts its naval blockade and sanctions, withdraws its military from the region, pays reparations for war damages, releases frozen Iranian assets and halts attacks. https://www.npr.org/2026/08/09/nx-s1-5925960/trump-hoover-iran?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_c
The authors of this working paper survey the growing literature on mortgage lock-in and its effects on household mobility, labor reallocation, home sales, owner-occupied prices, and spillovers into rental and commercial markets. They also discuss an array of potential policy options. https://www.atlantafed.org/research-and-data/publications/working-papers/2026/08/03/11-mortgage-lock-in-review-of-the-literature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailchimp&utm_campaign=weekly-digest
Questions? We Love Questions!
We receive a wide-range of questions every day and would love to hear yours. Questions lead to data and data should lead to better questions.
Special Topics
Special topics in each report
intended to increase the
reader’s understanding of
how the Puget Sound economy works
Past topics include regional growth, labor productivity, demographic trends, inflation, multipliers, entrepreneurs, and state and local taxes.
Web site subscribers currently have access to more than fifty special topics. Here are four examples drawn from the Special Topic Archive:
Stream Flow [Volume 27, Number 2, June 2019]
Is Traffic Real? [Volume 27, Number 1, March 2019]
Labor Force and Population [Volume 26, Number 4, December 2018]
Forest Fires [Volume 26, Number 3, September 2018]
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