TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — Community leaders and potential new area businesses can now access important information pertaining to population and per capita personal income in West Central Indiana, thanks to the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce.
“As part of our ongoing commitment to improve the way we attract, develop and retain talent, the Chamber has introduced a new Key Metrics webpage to provide community leaders with key data points they need to understand about our region,” Kristin Craig, President of the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce, said.
In 2020, the West Central Indiana region was designated as a 21st Century Talent Region by Blair Milo, Indiana Secretary of Career Connections and Talent. As part of the process through the state, the Chamber and other stakeholders reviewed a wide variety of regional metrics that impact talent attraction, development and retention.
The information gathered is critical to understanding how the community is impacting three major metrics — halting population decline, increasing per capita personal income and increasing educational attainment rates. The Chamber wanted to look at this data to see how the community can grow and prosper.
“Let’s say you’re a local elected official in a rural county,” Craig explained. “It’s going to impact you the same as it impacts folks in Vigo County, Terre Haute, other rural counties, so if we can all get on there, be understanding how these numbers are coming together, how they’re changing over the course of time, that will allow us to make better decisions to change the population growth.”
She added, “It’s really important for us to have this kind of information easily accessible so that anybody, whether you’re on the board of a non-profit, if you’re a local government leader, if you’re involved in business, you can get on there, check out these statistics and we can all kind of be moving in the same direction.”
Craig noted, “The Chamber isn’t working on this alone, the information is being tracked in partnership with several other community agencies, including Thrive West Central. Thrive is also keeping close tabs on these data points, including per capita personal income.”
The information is mainly provided in a regional viewpoint. Additionally in some cases, individual information is provided for each of the six counties; Clay, Parke, Putnam, Sullivan, Vermillion and Vigo. The webpage is adding information constantly; check back often for updates.
