The Recession Comes To The Panhandle

It may have taken a little longer for the current recession to start affecting the Texas Panhandle, but it has arrived now and it's starting to hurt. Unemployment is still fairly low when compared to the rest of the state. Here in Amarillo, the unemployment stands at 5.7% while it has climbed to 8% statewide. But that still means there are more than 2,000 people out of work now. That's about double the figure out of work a little over a year ago.

Business has been hit even harder. Sales taxes collections for June show a drop of 8.03% over this same time a year ago. The drop for the first six months of the year is 1.66%. That means the sales tax drop has gotten bigger since the first of the year (and will probably grow even larger).

For the surrounding cities of Brownfield, Hereford, Pampa, Perryton and Post, the drop in sales tax is even larger. They run from a low of 10.72% to a high of 34.42%. Panhandle cities are going to be hurting when the new fiscal year rolls around in September.

Amarillo National Bank president Richard Ware sums up the poor business climate in the area. He says, "West Texas is having a recession. Our customers' sales are down 10 to 15 percent and earnings as much as 90 percent. We're a very commodity-oriented economy and most of our customers are hurting, especially the dairy farmers."

A few months ago, some community leaders were talking like Amarillo and the Panhandle wouldn't be affected much by the recession. They were wrong. And there is no sign yet that things will get better soon. I suspect the opposite is true.