Hospital and higher education institutions are known as anchors because they are tied to the places they are in through the large number of people they employ, the services they provide, and their educational and health-care missions.
This brief leverages data from the Anchor Economy Dashboard to examine the 24 metropolitan and nonmetropolitan regions that make up the Third District of the Federal Reserve System. The Anchor Economy Dashboard is a new data tool from the Anchor Economy Initiative at the Philadelphia Fed, displaying metrics for anchor-generated employment, income, and gross value added in the 524 regions that compose the U.S. In addition, the dashboard introduces a reliance index, which shows how dependent each region is on these sectors for total economic output.
Among the findings for the Third District:
- Ten of 24 regions have a higher reliance on higher education and hospitals for economic activity than the U.S. as a whole; and
- Four regions in the Third District see nearly one additional job generated for every job in a hospital or higher education institution.