Economy

aerial view of the blue valley industrial area

Jobs in Blue Valley

It took a flood at his family’s business – Custom Truck One Source – to lead a frustrated Chris Ross back to his childhood stomping grounds in the Blue Valley neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. Custom Truck’s swamped site was located in the East Bottoms, but Ross knew that city leaders had invested millions in…

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A graphic explaining the futures market

How The Futures Market Helps Keep Your Grocery Bill Down

At the grocery store, processed foods like cereal, crackers and candy usually maintain the same price for a long time, and inch up gradually. Economists call these prices “sticky” because they don’t move much even as some of the commodities that go into them do. Take corn, for example, which can be a major food…

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KC Hearing Examines Payday Lending

Federal regulators looking to crack down on abuses in the payday lending industry heard from both sides of the issue at a hearing Thursday in Kansas City. “If a lender can succeed when borrowers are setup to fail, it is a telltale sign of a malfunctioning market,” said Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial…

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Ch-ch-ch-changes, for KCK shopping plaza

The Board of Commissioners of the Wyandotte County Unified Government meeting report

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Illustration of corn field with dollar signs

Upside Down-Land: Bitter Harvest

As Cerner and other businesses use TIF to ensure their growth, Kansas and Missouri keep squeezing their poorest citizens.

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Illustration of upside down people with coins

Upside Down-Land: Cerner's TIF Transplant

Neal Patterson personifies 21st-century Kansas City entrepreneurialism. He is his generation’s Henry Bloch or Joyce Hall, the head of a company he started from nothing — Cerner Corporation — and made KC’s most prosperous business. Cerner, a health-information technology firm, makes more than $3 billion a year. The company’s market capitalization — the value of…

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An irrigated field in Kansas. Irrigation accounts for about 85 percent of the state’s water use, according to the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources.

Plentiful access to water fuels prosperity in rural Republic County community

In mid-fall, trucks full of corn and soybeans rumble through the north-central Kansas town of Courtland on their way to the grain elevator at the south end of Main Street. While neighboring counties struggle to survive, the western half of Republic County, including Courtland, population 273, isn’t doing too bad. Technology and insurance companies support the…

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US Treasurer Rios calls for greater economic equality and opportunity

The poverty rate for Latinos is decreasing, but the continuing growth of income inequality is making economic advancement for Latinos difficult. That’s according to panelists speaking Sunday at the National Conference of La Raza (NCLR) in Kansas City. In a panel discussion titled “The Great Economic Divide, Why Inequality Matters,” the town hall meeting featured U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios as keynote speaker.

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