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GREENSBORO —  Workers in the city are getting the best jobs and incomes they have had in a decade, according to a new report.

The problem is, the report uses 2007 statistics — the most recent available — and doesn’t reflect the impact of an ongoing national recession.

The flattering results confirm much of what local leaders had been working toward over the past few years.

“The only concern I have, of course, is while we turned the corner in ’07, what has the fiscal crisis and the recession done to our community in the meantime? That is the $64,000 question,” said Keith Debbage, a professor of urban development at UNCG. He wrote “2009: The State of the City Report” for the Greensboro Partnership economic development group.

Without hard government figures for the local economy, Debbage and other officials can only hope that hiring growth at such companies as Honda Aircraft Co. and Tyco Electronics can keep the city’s economy from waning dramatically.

In addition, prospects of an 800-job aviation company now considering this area are keeping spirits high, he said.

Debbage’s report showed that the city has made progress in creating a more diverse economy that does not rely as heavily on manufacturing. But it also showed that the trade-off is a higher poverty rate.

The lowest-paying manufacturing jobs are gone, he said. And it’s likely that growth in retail jobs, which typically pay less, is putting more families below the $21,000-a-year poverty line.

Debbage said that his report offered continuing proof, however, that the city is developing industries that will grow when the economy improves.

Triad leaders believe transportation companies can help, for example, and Debbage’s report showed that the number of workers in those fields increased from 4.5 percent of the work force to 5.1 percent.

Over the past decade, he said, “we had a near-death (economic) experience. We identified transportation, aviation and logistics as a cluster after soul-searching.”

If the city lands the 800-job company, it will mark a milestone, he said.

“This project is validating everything we’ve done. This will build on that if we are successful. It’s very real,” Debbage said.

Debbage’s report offers plenty of good news:

• Per capita income grew from $23,180 in 2006 to $24,626 in 2007.
• The city’s population grew by 2.4 percent from 241,372 to 247,183.
• The makeup of the city’s jobs grew in such preferred areas as financial services and advanced manufacturing.

But the report’s bad news included:

• An increase in the teen-age pregnancy rate from 56.0 per 1,000 females aged 15-19 years old in 2006 to 56.8 in 2007.
• An increase in the proportion of low-paying retail jobs.
• A jump in the poverty rate from 19 percent to 19.3 percent.

“That is a really troubling trend,” Debbage said. “While we have done a lot of heavy lifting, when you have one in five people essentially in poverty, that is a strong indicator that we have a lot of work left to do.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron @news-record.com