SRRI developed the Prosperity Index to provide business and community leaders in the Sacramento Region a valuable tool to measure economic prosperity and track its performance against competitor regions in order to evaluate the competition, identify opportunities for improvement, and impact change in the Region.  Along with the national average, ten competitor regions were chosen as benchmarks based on feedback from regional economic development organizations regarding metropolitan areas that often compete with the Region for business location and expansion projects.  SRRI will update the Prosperity Index annually - which measures indicators in the three areas of Business, People and Place. The Business component will be updated quarterly in order to allow for more frequent evaluations of the local business climate. The Sacramento Region placed seventh on the 2008 Prosperity Index, posting a score of 7.7 out of a possible 10, as shown in Figure 1. Sacramento received decent scores on the People and Place components, but a somewhat weak score on the Business component, placing the Region toward the middle of the list. Among the five competitor regions in California, Sacramento ranked second, placing behind only the SF Bay Area and ahead of the San Diego region, Stockton region, and Inland Empire (Riverside/San Bernardino). In relation to its main competitors, the Sacramento Region presents economic prosperity that is above average, giving it a moderate competitive position.   The first quarter 2009 BUSINESS component of the Prosperity Index shows that the Sacramento Region jumped back up to ninth place among its main competitors after falling into tenth place last quarter. This improvement took place despite receiving a lower relative score this quarter, 4.5 compared to 4.9 last quarter, as a result of the top place region pulling further ahead of all the other competitive regions. Relative to its main competitors, Sacramento’s business climate presents a fairly low and steady competitive position (even during the current economic downturn)—out of the 15 measured quarters, the Region has been in ninth place six times and has only topped this ranking once (back in the fourth quarter of 2005 when it came in seventh). With the familiar ninth place ranking, the Sacramento Region remained ahead of the two relatively poor performing California regions, the Inland Empire and Stockton, but still fell behind the national average as well as the other measured regions in the state, the Bay Area and San Diego. The Sacramento Region received a decent score on the Establishment Growth indicator along with moderate scores in Office Vacancy Rate, Payroll Growth, and Unemployment Rate. Besides Payroll Growth all of these indicators experienced a drop in relative score from the previous quarter. Job Growth and Venture Capital Investment received low scores again in spite of slight improvements over the last quarter.