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September 2009, Vol. 132, No. 9
Employment growth in the Kansas City, MO-KS, Metropolitan Statistical Area
Jacqueline Michael-Midkiff, Linda Nickisch, and Cassandra Yocum
Jacqueline Michael-Midkiff is a regional economist, and Linda Nickisch and Cassandra Yocum are economists, all in the Kansas City economic analysis and information office of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. E-mail: Midkiff.Jacqueline@bls.gov, Nickisch.Linda@bls.gov and Yocum.Cassandra@bls.gov
From 1990 to 2007, there was a substantial narrowing of the gap between the higher level of employment on the Missouri side of the Kansas City Metropolitan Statistical Area and the lower level of employment on the Kansas side; leading the shift was robust growth in Johnson County combined with slow growth in Jackson County.
Ehe Kansas City, MO-KS, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is a bistate area currently consisting of nine counties in Missouri and six counties in Kansas.1 It is often assumed that Kansas City is in Kansas, yet the central business district of Kansas City is in Missouri and, historically, the Missouri side of the metropolitan area has had a far larger population than the Kansas side of the area. In fact, in 1990 (the year that the data used in this article begin) 61.2 percent of the population of the metropolitan area was on the Missouri side of the State line. By 2007, Kansas had increased its share of the Kansas City area population by 2.6 percentage points and Missouri’s share had dropped to 58.6 percent.2
While there has been modest growth in the number of residents of the Kansas City area living on the Kansas side, there has been even more growth in the number working on the Kansas side. In fact, substantial employment growth on the Kansas side is closing the gap between the numbers of jobs on the two sides of the State line, with Kansas’ share of the MSA’s total employment increasing from 38 percent in 1990 to 44 percent in 2007. A single county, Johnson, is responsible for more than 90 percent of the growth in the Kansas portion of the MSA.
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Footnotes
1 The Office of Management and Budget definition of the Kansas City Metropolitan Statistical Area changed during the reference period for this study. In 1990, a total of 10 counties were included in the MSA. One county (Clinton County, Missouri) was added in 1993 and four more (Linn County, Kansas; Bates County, Missouri; Caldwell County, Missouri; and Cass County, Missouri) were added in 2003. For purposes of this study, data for all 15 counties were compiled to create statistics that are comparable from one period to another.
2 Shares were calculated by summing county population data for each state and dividing by the population of the total metropolitan area. Calculations were made using 1990 and 2007 data located on a page of the U.S. Census Bureau Web site: http://factfinder.census.gov (visited Sept. 18, 2009). For 1990 data, see http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-state=qt&-context=qt&-qr_name=DEC_1990_STF1_DP1&-ds_name=DEC_1990_STF1_&-tree_id=100&-all_geo_types=N&-_caller=geoselect&- geo_id=05000US20059&-geo_id=05000US20091&-geo_id=05000US20103&-geo_id=05000US20107&-geo_id=05000US20121&-geo_id=05000US20209&-geo_id=05000US29013&- geo_id=05000US29025&-geo_id=05000US29037&-geo_id=05000US29047&-geo_id=05000US29049&-geo_id=05000US29095&- geo_id=05000US29107&-geo_id=05000US29165&-geo_id=05000US29177&-search_results=05000US20209&-format=&-_lang=en (visited Sept. 18, 2009). For 2007 data, see http://factfinder.census.gov/home/en/official_estimates_2007.html (visited Sept. 18, 2009). Under “Popular Tables”, click on “Counties within a State”, and choose a State from the dropdown box.
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
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