Federal government default would create an economic crater in the Tri-Cities

“We shouldn’t be having these discussions,” Jerome Powell, president of the Federal Reserve Board, is on record saying.

But we have. Thankfully, the consequences of a default by the U.S. government on its debt are now in the rearview mirror. But as long as there is significant federal debt and a debt ceiling, they won’t disappear.

Specters that might again appear would include bond markets seizing up, as “risk-free” debt of the federal government becomes as risky as Argentina’s sovereign debt. They would include a compromised operational readiness of our military. They also likely would include a crash of confidence by the private sector, putting millions on the unemployed rolls. These are but a few outcomes.

What would the likely consequences of a default look like locally? It’s hard to forecast concrete scenarios with any precision. But we can at least size up the current federal presence here.

A look at the data shows that a default would create economic craters – especially in Benton County, but Franklin County wouldn’t be immune.

These impacts would be deeper than in most Washington metros.

To start, let’s consider a standard measure of total economic activity: personal income.

Three buckets characterize the accounting of a local economy: wages and salaries, investment income and federal transfer payments.

In most counties, wages and salaries make up the majority of total income. So, too, here.

programs amounted to 75% of all federal transfer payments statewide; in 2021, 58%.

The Tri-City metro area is no different.

Adding together two sources of federal spending in Franklin County yields a footprint of 29% of total income.

D. Patrick Jones Eastern Washington University

In 2021 in Washington state, the share taken up by wage earnings generally ran 50% to 65%, with rural counties at the low end and urban counties at the high end.

Statewide, the average in 2021 was 62%. In Benton and Franklin counties, wage earnings amounted to 60% and 61%, respectively, of total income.

The smallest portion is usually investment income. This share typically runs 10% to 25% among the counties in the state, depending on the size of the retiree population and the county’s wealth profile.

The state average in 2021 was 20%. Benton and Franklin counties’ shares that year: 15% and 11%, respectively.

Federal transfer payments make up the rest. Briefly, they are defined as contributions to individuals that aren’t work-related – that is, not from a federal paycheck.

The sources cover the alphabet soup of federal programs. But in every county three contribute the lion’s share: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

In pre-pandemic 2019, these three

The relative size of all federal transfer payments in the greater Tri-Cities, however, departs from the state. In 2021, it was 25% and 28% of all income reported in Benton and Franklin counties, respectively. In Washington in 2021? Much lower, at 18%.

The federal presence in the local economy doesn’t stop with transfer payments. Consider federal payrolls. In 2021, they added nearly $80 million to Benton County’s total income, or 0.7%; in Franklin County, about $44 million, or 0.9%.

Then consider the “near federal” payrolls of Benton County.

Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC) data on employment at PNNL shows 5,300 and at Bechtel, about 2,000.

Headcounts of the large Hanford contractors – Washington River Protection Solutions, Central Plateau Cleanup Company and Hanford Mission Integration Solutions – sum to 6,300.

Altogether then, nearly 14,000 highly paid workers live in the county.

Using wage data by sector from the Washington Department of Employment Security, I arrive at 12.3% for the “near federal” share of total income in the county.

Adding together all three sources of federal spending in Benton County yields a footprint of 38% of total income in 2021.

This arithmetic, by the way, doesn’t include any federal grants received by local governments, near governmental agencies or higher education.

In other words, the federal presence in 2021 was worth at least $38 for every $100 of income received in Benton County and $29 in Franklin County.

Now imagine that the standoff over the debt ceiling had precipitated an annual drop in 10% of total federal flows to the two counties. In an economy with $16 billion in income in 2021, the losses are in the hundreds of millions to the metro area.

In a more normal year, one without extraordinary pandemic support, federal transfer payments make up 19% to 20% of the local economy. Once direct and indirect federal payrolls are folded in, the federal share of the economy is nearly one-third in Benton County and a little more than one-fifth in Franklin County. This is still far greater exposure than in the average Washington county.

The recent deal calls for revisiting the debt ceiling in 2025. Let us hope that the parties involved in future negotiations will not push the world, our country and the thriving Tri-Cities economy to the precipice again.

D. Patrick Jones is the executive director for Eastern Washington University’s Institute for Public Policy & Economic Analysis.