The Creighton University Rural Mainstreet Index was released on Thursday for September. The overall index declined to 51.5 from 54.8 in August.
“This is of course, a survey of Bank CEOs in rural areas of 10 states, including Kansas,” said economist Ernie Goss. “Average community size is 1300. It’s based a lot on agriculture and what happens in energy, those two sectors. The number was above growth neutral, but it did decline for the month. I won’t say we’re moving in the wrong direction, but we’re certainly, some of the growth is cooling out there.”
Kansas is included in the cooling. The state’s rate dropped from August’s 56.3 to 53.2.
“The tariffs are kicking in or at least having some negative impacts,” said Goss. “We’re seeing that in the agricultural sector. For example, agricultural commodity prices are still very weak. Of course, we can trace that to some of the tariffs and trade restrictions and some of the uncertainty surrounding what’s going on between the U.S. and China.”
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