USD Economist: San Diego Housing Market Bogging Down Entire Economy
The University of San Diego's index of leading economic indicators fell for the 14th time in 15 months in June. USD economist Alan Gin says San Diego's struggling housing market is dragging the rest of the economy down.
He says nearly all of the indexes he measures declined last month. Only local stock prices were up slightly. Gin says the local economy is almost at a standstill and that can be measured by microscopic job growth over the last 12 months.
Gin : We've only added about 1,600 jobs. That's a really small number. Just to give you perspective. For all of 2006 we added almost 18,000 jobs. So our job growth rate is only about a tenth of what it was last year.
The index predicts how the economy will perform in six months. Gin says he expects things to remain sluggish through the first of the year.
