SEATAC, Wash. and TIGARD, Ore. — A new economic analysis is reporting that Northwest credit unions, as businesses, drove more than $6.8 billion dollars in economic impact, provided more than 15,000 family wage jobs and delivered $352 million in direct benefits to their 4.9 million members in 2014.
Conducted and released by the independent firm ECONorthwest, and commissioned in 2014 by the Northwest Credit Union Association, the findings include:
- Members appreciate direct benefits. Credit union members received an average direct benefit of $76 per individual member in Washington while Oregon credit union members received an average direct benefit of $63 per individual member. Collectively, credit unions put $352 million into the wallets of their members. That money went right back into the economy creating a ripple effect buying power of more than $732 million, according to the Northwest CU Association.
- Credit unions provide family wage jobs. Credit unions employed 10,415 people in Washington and 4,908 in Oregon. Every credit union job supports another 2.02 jobs for workers in other sectors, according to ECONorthwest, resulting in a total impact of 46,296 Northwest jobs.
- Credit unions are foundational to the communities they serve. In Northwest rural communities, about 617,500 consumers are members of credit unions, representing 37% of the rural population. Credit unions are often the only financial institutions available in many Northwest communities.
“The $6.8 billion in economic impact documented by the ECONorthwest study represents the effect of having credit unions as businesses in the Oregon and Washington economies,” said the NWCUA. “This does not include the additional economic impact created by lending activities such as auto lending, mortgage lending and business lending.”
The study further found that nearly three-million credit union loans totaling almost $40 billion are currently outstanding in the market.
More information can be found at www.nwcua.org/credit-union-impact.
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