The Washington area economy continues to grow in spite of broad-based decreases in

the national economy. All sub-state portions of the metropolitan area added jobs during

2008 (final 2008 revised employment data will be released on March 11, 2009) and,

even though unemployment has risen from 3.0% to 4.7% over the year, the Washington

area unemployment level remains the lowest among major metro areas. The outlook

for 2009 is for the area economy to slow further during the first half and then reaccelerate

sooner than the US economy during the second half of the year but overall,

GRP growth is expected to only be 1.5%, the slowest annual gain since 1991. This

projected gain compares to the current forecast for the US economy in which GDP is

expected to contract by 2.5% for the largest one-year decrease since 1948, exceeding

the 2.0% GDP decline in 1982.