“The number of businesses has seen an upward trend this year and we are continuing to see busi- ness growth,” Irwin-Bass says. “The unemployment rate is steadily decreasing … and that’s a good th ing.” The partners also looked at business growth over the past year, both in the number of busi- nesses in the county and the mix of industries. “That whole area is looking extremely strong,” she explains. “The only area that really indicated movement was population diversity as we are be- coming a more diverse population, but even that was slight although we are moving in the right di- rection.” The Economic Engine indicator pointed to a positive year, she says. “Generally, things are looking fine in those ar- eas,” she says. Both the Community and Culture and Health and Safety areas saw no significant changes this past year, Irwin-Bass says.
We could combine our resources and fo- cus our attention, our work and our dollars on making an impact.” The Prosperity Indicators focus on six areas: Community and Culture, Economic Engine, Edu- cation, Health & Safety, Physical Environment and Well Being of People.
“By working together, we could focus in on those areas and make the most impact. “The real impetus behind the program was re- ally to find a consensus around indicators that we could measure uniformly throughout the county to better leverage our limited dollars and resourc- es on areas giving us the most trouble,” says Cher- yl Irwin-Bass, vice president and chief operations officer of the Chamber. Partnering with the Lancaster County Community Founda- tion, the United Way of Lancaster County, the County of Lancaster and LNP, the Chamber mon- itors six key areas of pr osperity. The Chamber began tracking the indicators after launching the program in 2011. That’s the basic takeaway from this year’s Prosperity Indicators report, issued by the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce. Lancaster County is a great place to work and live, although there are a few areas that could use improvement.