Washington State's Economy Least Impacted By COVID-19: Study

SEATTLE — Washington is the state whose economy is least exposed to the coronavirus, according to a new study from WalletHub.

In its study, WalletHub says researchers looked at all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and measured them across 13 key metrics, like how much of their GDP came from highly affected industries like retail and food services, how their economies are recovering, and what resources each state is offering businesses to help them cope with the crisis.

Ultimately, WalletHub found that Washington is the state whose economy is least exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Note that the above graphic ranks the states by most exposed rather than least, so Washington, at 51, is the least exposed to COVID-19, Louisiana, at 1, is the most.

WalletHub's Top 5 State Economies Least Exposed to Coronavirus:

1. Washington
2. Arizona
3. Oregon
4. Utah
5. District of Columbia

One reason Washington did so well: It's providing resources for businesses that have struggled during the prolonged closure. WalletHub found Washington had done the third best job giving resources to businesses to help them stay afloat. That may be unsurprising, considering the thousands of small business grants the state created with CARES Act funding. Just back in February, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a $2.2 billion emergency COVID-19 relief bill — which set aside $240 million for business assistance grants.

Rounding out the bottom of WalletHub's list were states like Louisiana and Oklahoma, which provided relatively few resources for businesses in need.

The Evergreen State also performed well because its largest grossing industries were not highly impacted by the pandemic — only Nebraska and Arkansas had less affected industries. That's likely due to the state's the abundance of tech jobs, which easily transitioned to work-from-home setups early in the pandemic.

"The pandemic has changed our working patterns, and these patterns of remote working are likely to stay at least in part after the pandemic is over," said Orly Lobel, a professor of law at the University of San Diego. "Companies have seen that they can reduce costs, and increase the talent pool, by allowing employees to work from home and many companies have already announced that work will remain remote for the foreseeable future."

Amazon, Washington's largest employer, has just 10 percent of its corporate workers back in the office, though it has announced plans to have more return in the summer and fall.

That's not to say everyone in Washington is doing well. The study does note that many Washington employees work in highly affected industries, even if those industries don't account for a large chunk of the GDP. Washington was found to be the state with the 15th largest share of employees in highly affected industries, in part because of the high number of people employed in arts, entertainment and recreation, plus advertising and public relations — all industries that were highly affected, according to researchers.

>> Read the full study from WalletHub