What one company does to a town. Pick two hypothetical employers, drag the sliders, and watch how differently they ripple through Spokane. This is a teaching tool built on published research, not a forecast; the fine print is below and worth reading.
The idea being tested here is called the local multiplier. Jobs at companies that sell to the outside world, like planes, software or engineering, bring new money into a region. That money then becomes customers for everyone else. Jobs that serve local demand matter too, but they mostly move around money that is already here. Same job count, very different town.
total jobs in the region (direct + ripple)
additional local jobs created (shops, restaurants, services, trades)
new annual payroll in the region
new local spending per year
neighborhood storefronts that spending could sustain
median Spokane household incomes, direct paychecks alone
total jobs in the region (direct + ripple)
additional local jobs created (shops, restaurants, services, trades)
new annual payroll in the region
new local spending per year
neighborhood storefronts that spending could sustain
median Spokane household incomes, direct paychecks alone
We give each new job the average wage for its industry, using Spokane-area figures where we have them. Then a range estimates how many more local jobs those paychecks create, as people spend at shops, restaurants, clinics and contractors. The ranges come from published economics. We widened them and pushed them down on purpose, because researchers argue about the exact size even when they agree on the direction.
| Sector | Extra local jobs per new job | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Software & tech | 1.8 to 3.8 | Moretti finds up to 4.9 for high-tech; capped here per more conservative county-level research |
| Aerospace & advanced manufacturing | 1.2 to 2.0 | Moretti estimates 1.6 for manufacturing |
| Finance & professional services | 1.0 to 2.3 | Skilled tradable jobs: roughly 2.0 to 2.5 |
| Health care | 0.3 to 0.9 | Partly tradable here: Spokane is the referral hub treating Idaho and Montana patients |
| Logistics & warehousing | 0.4 to 1.2 | Moves goods for buyers beyond the county, but pay sits below manufacturing, so the range is held under Moretti’s 1.6 |
| Hotels & tourism | 0.2 to 0.7 | Visitor spending brings outside money in, but low pay per job limits the ripple |
| Construction | 0.1 to 0.5 | Mostly builds for demand already here, so it largely moves local money |
| Retail & food service | 0.0 to 0.2 | Mostly shifts spending locals were already doing |
Multiplier research: Enrico Moretti, “Local Multipliers,” American Economic Review (2010), summarized well by NPR’s Planet Money; the Upjohn Institute (Bartik) surveys the debate and finds smaller county-level multipliers, which is why our ranges sit below the published maxima. Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wages, Spokane (tech, food service); Spokane Workforce Council industry data (health care, finance, manufacturing); and BLS QCEW Spokane County industry pay, 2025 (logistics, hotels, construction), archived with this site’s data at data/qcew/industry_pay_2025.csv.
The remaining assumptions are round on purpose, and you should argue with them: 35% of new payroll becomes local consumer spending; ripple jobs pay an average of $52,000; a neighborhood storefront needs about $500,000 a year in sales to survive; the median Spokane County household income is $86,206 (Census ACS, 2024).
A forecast. Real outcomes depend on wages actually paid, how many hires come from out of the area, housing capacity, and luck. It also leaves out the costs: recruited employers often extract tax incentives, and growth brings housing-price pressure, which Boise knows well. And no calculator lands an employer; a decade of focused selling does. The point of this page is smaller and sturdier: the kind of job matters more than the count of jobs, and a city that wants full storefronts should chase the kinds at the top of the table.