This summer, our President & CEO Todd O’Hair again joined the Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research for their economic update series across seven Montana cities. Christina Henderson of the Montana High Tech Business Alliance and Jeff Michael, BBER Director, made up the program alongside Todd.
Key Takeaways from the Update Presentations:
- Montana’s economy is rapidly diversifying. High tech is growing faster than any other sector and driving wage growth that exceeds the national average.
- The high tech sector is 5% of Montana GDP.
- Largely due to high tech sector, Bozeman now has the highest average income of any county in Montana. Two years ago, the county with the highest average wage was Stillwater County, attributed to the Sibanye-Stillwater mine.
- In-migration to Montana has now settled to a 10 year average after surges during the pandemic era.
- Janicki Industries’ announcement for an $800 million investment in Great Falls is the single largest investment in decades for Montana and will spur widespread supply chain and economic impacts.
- The national economy has continued to grow despite high energy prices and tariffs. This growth is largely attributed to huge investment and activity in the high tech space—artificial intelligence and data centers. Montana has not benefitted from those investments yet, but data center proposals are shown to have significant massive economic benefits.
- BBER’s economic analysis of the Quantica proposal outside of Billings would likely be the single biggest investment in Montana’s history.
- Property tax payments from the Quantica proposal would generate the equivalent tax of Yellowstone County’s 5 largest property taxpayers combined.
- The Quantica project would create new revenue for the state of Montana and local government while also driving down the property tax burden for businesses and residents in Yellowstone County.