AEDC Releases Economic Trends Report
Anchorage, ALASKA
Executive Summary
Anchorage’s economy over the past decade is best understood as three distinct eras layered on top of a few persistent, structural trends. The three eras, a pre-COVID oil-price driven recession (2015–2019), the COVID shock (2020–2021), and a post-COVID recovery (2022–2026), each with their own distinct causes and outcomes. The data shows that underneath all three a smaller set of structural forces has been running continuously since at least 2013: a shrinking and aging working-age population, chronic net outmigration, a shift away from employment in Anchorage’s highest paying industry (oil and gas) toward logistics and health care, and a slow, steady decline in Anchorage’s share of Alaska’s
total workforce.
Key Findings
● According to Alaska Department of Labor Employment data, Anchorage’s share of Alaska’s total employment
has declined in 10 of the last 11 years (46.5% in 2015 to 45.1% in 2025), interrupted only by a one-year uptick
in 2020, still the single cleanest structural trend in the data.
● Population and the working-age labor force peaked around 2013, two years before this report’s employment
data begins, meaning Anchorage entered its current employment dataset already inside a demographic
contraction.
● Anchorage’s cost of living sits about 28% above the national average (composite index 127.9, 2026 Q1), with
housing costs the fastest-rising component, up roughly 3.7% year-over-year alone.
● Consumer confidence in Anchorage, at 40.5 as of July 2026, is essentially tied with the all-time low recorded
during the initial COVID shock (40.1, March 2020), and sentiment about the local economy specifically is
markedly worse than sentiment about personal finances.
● Business sentiment has improved somewhat: AEDC’s July 2026 Anchorage Business survey shows a far more
balanced outlook for 2027 (26% expect the Anchorage economy to fare better vs. 29% worse) than the June
2025 Anchorage Business Confidence Index survey found for 2025 (23% better vs. 66% worse), though both
surveys agree the state/local economy and labor availability are the top barriers to growth.
Current conditions (mid-2026) show an economy that is not in crisis but is clearly…
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