Just two weeks before Inauguration Day, the Chester County Economic Development Council held its 13th Annual Economic Outlook, with a special focus on Perspectives on the Post-Election Economy. Key Chester County leaders identified the challenges, opportunities, and impact the President-Elect’s new administration is expected to have on local, national, and global economies.

The CCEDC’s Annual Economic Outlook attracted almost 150 local business leaders to the CCEDC headquarters in Exton to hear key speakers, including Patti Brennan, one of Barron’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors in the Nation, and Dave Hanson, CEO of Fulton Financial Advisors. Among their top projections for 2017:

• Local Business Wild Card: Local businesses, small and large, are already expressing a shift in sentiment from pessimism to optimism. The wild card is whether that optimism will last as the long-term effects of the President-Elect’s policies unfold.
• Small Business to the Rescue: If the Trump Administration can convince small business people that it’s time to invest and hire, the small business sector in the Philadelphia area and beyond is a potentially coiled spring in the economy that could pop and drive unexpected growth in the economy.
• Effects of “Trump-phoria”: A major risk is that Trump euphoria could spur small businesses and individuals to invest more heavily – and possibly imprudently – in the stock market, putting their financial stability at risk in a particularly volatile post-election environment.
• Good News for the Region’s Corporations: So far, it appears the biggest winners of the President-Elect’s policies will be the region’s corporations, who could see their taxes cut by more than half, launching billions of dollars into the economy to hire people and purchase goods and services – a trend we haven’t seen in many years.

The CCEDC is a private, non-profit economic development organization promoting smart growth in Chester County and the surrounding region for more than 50 years.