Home shopping
The holiday season is here. Most people exchange gifts with their family and friends, and many in the Arkansas River Valley will drive hours — to Little Rock, Fayetteville, Dallas — to purchase them.
But what is the impact to the local economy when someone chooses to leave the area to purchase a gift — or, better yet, when they decide to shop local?
“(It) makes a huge impact to our community,” Russellville Chamber of Commerce president Jeff Pipkin said last week. “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters predicts that every dollar spent turns over seven times before it leaves the community.”
And local dollars mean local jobs, a familiar concern in these economic times.
Pipkin said Pope County’s unemployment rate — a number that measures those who are seeking work without success — is at 6.5 percent.
“Prior to this economic mess, it was at 4.5 percent,” he said.
There are signs the local area, however, maintains a level of insulation from the worst of the economic crisis.
Russellville director of finance Jerry McKaughan said even though the unemployment rate is high now, the local struggle isn’t as large as in other parts of the country.
“Russellville is in the hub here. We don’t have the huge expansions like some other cities have,” McKaughan said.
“Thankfully, our unemployment rate is less than the state and national average, but in order for that to stay where it is or get better, people need to support community spending to keep jobs here.”
