Herkimer and Oneida Counties

The Utica-Rome metro area, comprising Herkimer and Oneida counties, has a population of just under 300,000, based on the 2010 Census—virtually unchanged from 2000. Oneida County includes both the cities of Utica and Rome and accounts for nearly 80 percent of the area's population. Herkimer County is rural, though it includes some textile and metal manufacturing. Both counties’ populations held steady over the past decade, following declines over the previous two decades.

This metro area lags the state and the nation in income and educational attainment. Median household income was roughly $45,000 in 2009—lower in Herkimer, slightly higher in Oneida. Roughly one in five adults over the age of 25 holds a college degree; again, the figure is somewhat lower in Herkimer than in Oneida County. Looking at the demographic mix, the proportion of Blacks, Hispanics and Asians are all well below the national and statewide averages.

Manufacturing accounts for a relatively large share of the local economy, due to a particularly high concentration of both primary and fabricated metals production. While a major casino is one of Oneida County’s top employers, tourism (i.e., leisure & hospitality) does not account for a particularly large share of the local economy overall. During the recent economic downturn, job losses in this metropolitan area were less severe than nationally: employment fell by roughly 3 percent between the beginning of 2008 and mid-2009. Thus far, however, there has been no significant recovery in employment, which has been weighed down by steep job losses in manufacturing, logging, mining and construction, and transportation & utilities. Nevertheless, education & health services and leisure & hospitality held up fairly well during the downturn and have added jobs since. Home prices fell considerably during the downturn—by an estimated 20 percent between mid-2007 and early-2009—but, again, less steeply than at the national level. Prices rebounded somewhat in 2009 and the first half of 2010 but slipped back to their lows by year end¹.

Recent Trends
Private-sector employment rose moderately in the first half of 2011, led by job gains in professional & business services and education & health services. However, these have been partly offset by job losses in logging, mining and construction and leisure & hospitality, the latter of which had registered fairly strong job growth through 2010. Home prices edged up during the spring of 2011, though they remained roughly 18 percent below their peak levels of mid-2007.

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¹Trends in home prices referred to here are all based on repeat-sales indexes from CoreLogic.

	Utica-Rome MSA*: selected characteristics
		Population in 2010			% of 2010 Population that is1
		Total Population1	% Change from 20001	per Sq. Mile2	Black	Hispanic	Asian
	Utica-Rome Metro Area	299,397	-0.2	114	5.1	4.0	2.3
	Herkimer	64,519	0.1	46	1.1	1.6	0.5
	Oneida	234,878	-0.2	194	6.3	4.6	2.8
	New York State	19,378,102	2.1	410	15.9	17.6	7.3
	USA	308,745,538	9.7	87	12.6	16.3	4.8

	Utica-Rome MSA*: selected characteristics
		Median		% of Homes	% of Adults with5
		Household Income3	Home Value4	Owner Occupied4	College Degrees	HS Degrees
	Utica-Rome Metro Area	$44,850	$247,000	69.6	20.1	85.5
	Herkimer	$40,818	$87,800	70.7	17.7	85.7
	Oneida	$46,074	$105,100	67.9	20.8	85.4
	New York State	$54,659	$310,000	55.4	31.8	84.2
	USA	$50,221	$191,900	66.4	27.5	84.6
* Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) are metro areas defined by the Office of Management and Budget for use by federal statistical agencies. 1 Source: US Bureau of the Census, decennial Census of Population. 2 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census of Population; land area data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s geographic database (TIGER® database) for Census 2000. 3 Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2009 (1-year estimates) 4 Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2007-09 (3-year estimates) 5 Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2006-08 (3-year estimates)

September 2011