Rating Visalia-porterville’s risk to economy due to the virus

It could be a lot worse

When it comes to Moody’s Analytics rating of metropolitan area economies at the greatest risk of being severely hurt, it’s not surprising the Visalia-porterville area is expected to sustain its share of damage.

But considering California is expected to be one of the hardest hit states economically when it comes to Moody’s Analytics ratings, the Visalia-porterville area isn’t expected to have it as bad as other metropolitan areas in the state.

California had 17 metropolitan areas ranked among the 100 metropolitan areas that were at the greatest risk of severe economic damage, according to Moody’s Analytics. There were 16 other metropolitan areas in the state that were considered to be at a greater risk of suffering severe economic damage than Visaliaporterville.

Visalia-porterville was rated as the 17th riskiest in the state and 100th riskiest out of 403 metropolitan areas in the country. So when it comes to metropolitan areas in California, many metro areas were considered to be at a greater risk of suffering sever economic damage than Visaliaporterville.

Moody’s Analytics looked at health, demographic and economic stats to rate the 403 U.S. Metro regions.

California had three metropolitan areas in the top 10: San Francisco was rated as the second most riskiest in the country, San Rafael was rated No. 8 and Oakland was rated No. 9. Rouding out the top 10 were: Kahului-wailuku-lahaina (1), New York (3), Miami (4), Las Vegas (5), Honolulu (6), Orlando (7) and Philadelphia (10).

The other metropolitan areas from California in the top 100 were: San Jose (15), Orange County (16), Los Angeles (22), El Centro (25), Salinas (28), San Diego (44), Napa (48), Santa Barbara (52), San Luis Obispo (78), Madera (82), Bakersfield (90), Ventura County (94) and Sacramento (99).

The 403 metropolitan areas were rated by how much of their populations are at high risk of infection, diseases that could be linked to their areas and their industries hardest hit by social distancing.

The 403 metros were scored on their links to the disease, from populations at high risk of infection to industries hard hit by business limitations.

Moody’s also ranked chances of virus exposure by looking at infection rate and rate of foreign travel; density of the region; how much migragation there is in the region; how many residents are 65 and older; how much the area depends on air travel and exports; the area’s tourism; finance; and how much industries such as mining and energy were in the area.

The state’s lowest risk economies were Redding (323), Chico (205) and Inland Empire (176).

Out of the 50 states and District of Columbia, California was rated as the 10th riskiest to be hardest hit behind Hawaii, Washington, Florida, New York, District of Columbia, Louisiana, Texas and Massachusetts. California was rated as the third-higest as far as exposure to the coronavirus.

Befor the coronavirus

hit, Moody’s was quite high on Visalia-porterville’s economy with a recent evaluation stating:

“Visalia-porterville’s economy is on the upswing. After more than a year of below-average performance, job creation has surged in the past six months and is tracking the average pace in the state.”