{"id":375612,"date":"2025-11-13T09:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/375612\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T09:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:19:12","slug":"military-spending-makes-up-22-2-of-regional-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/375612\/","title":{"rendered":"Military spending makes up 22.2% of regional economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/USS-Spruance.jpg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/USS-Spruance.jpg\" alt=\"USS Spruance leaves San Diego\" class=\"wp-image-309896\"  \/><\/a>The USS Spruance leaves Naval Base San Diego on in March. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy)<\/p>\n<p>The military supports nearly 357,000 local jobs and represents $61.3 billion of San Diego County\u2019s economy, according to the 2025 Military Economic Impact Report released Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The annual report, released by the <a href=\"http:\/\/sdmac.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Diego Military Advisory Council<\/a> and the UC San Diego Rady School of Management, found that defense spending accounts for 22.2% of the region\u2019s Gross Regional Product. This is a decline of 3% from 2024, owing in part to federal budget cuts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSan Diego\u2019s defense community continues to be one of the most dynamic and stabilizing forces in our economy,\u201d said Lisa Ord\u00f3\u00f1ez, dean of the Rady School. \u201cOur collaboration with SDMAC reflects Rady\u2019s ongoing commitment to generating insights that strengthen our region while supporting the service members, veterans and families who call it home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 2025 report records $39.3 billion in direct defense spending, including $19.8 billion in defense contracts awarded to more than 2,000 companies. Payroll for active-duty, reserve, and civilian employees totaled $15.1 billion, while retirement and veterans\u2019 benefits rose to $4.3 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSan Diego\u2019s military presence remains a key driver of economic growth, innovation, and collaboration,\u201d said Michael Meyer, associate teaching professor at the Rady School and faculty lead for the report since 2021. \u201cEven with modest shifts and uncertainties in federal budgets, the data show how resilient and deeply connected the defense sector is to our region\u2019s workforce and technology ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In whole, defense supports more than one in five jobs locally \u2014 143,000 active-duty, reserve, as well as civilian personnel, and indirectly supporting 214,000 jobs through contracting, logistics and local business activity.<\/p>\n<p>SDMAC has partnered with the Rady School to produce the annual report for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis collaboration helps decision-makers in San Diego, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C. understand how critical the defense sector is \u2014 not only to national security but also to local innovation, workforce development, and quality of life,\u201d said David Boone, SDMAC president, CEO and a retired Navy rear admiral. \u201cOur report concludes that even amid evolving federal spending patterns, the defense sector remains one of San Diego\u2019s most stable and forward- looking engines of growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The USS Spruance leaves Naval Base San Diego on in March. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy) The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":375613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,79,420,1802,3549,180505,7264,16795,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-375612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-jobs","13":"tag-military","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-military-advisory-council","16":"tag-sandiego","17":"tag-spending","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115541650596127631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}