A new Kentucky Chamber of Commerce report examining data in jobs, wages and housing market growth shows that the state has been slowly climbing out of the 2008 recession, chamber president Dave Adkisson says.“Clearly, things are growing in that direction," Adkisson says. "Housing and housing construction is growing very well right now, not nearly back up to the peak."But remember the peak before the recession was actually a bubble, a housing bubble, and so, we’re getting back up to healthy levels, and I’m optimistic about 2014.”The report points to large growths in salaries and wages in Hardin, Christian and Madison counties. They grew substantially because of federal spending on military bases in those areas.Adkisson says that the drawdown from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could slow that growth.“Three areas of Kentucky around Fort Campbell, Fort Knox and the Bluegrass Army Depot have experienced pretty heavy military spending during the recession, in other words during the last five or six years, and remember we were fighting two wars during part of that time in Iraq and Afghanistan," he says. "With the federal military pulling, with the federal government pulling back from those two wars and military spending, I think we could see some tapering off in that regard."
