One Year of Stimulus: How Stimulated Are You?
Now that a year has passed since the stimulus act became law, it's worth considering it's impact. Many of our clients are selling into the government, healthcare, and education markets - and the impact has been significant.
On the one hand, our clients that sell to government agencies and education saw sales hold steady during the recession. However there is new fear that the stimulus has mostly been spent and things will fall off a cliff in the year to come as massive holes open up in municipal budgets.
In healthcare, our clients saw a huge stall in 2009 as the promise of stimulus caused IT buyers to pause and wait for rules to be issued over what is or isn't covered by stimulus money. However there is new optimism that money is starting to flow and the impact will hit in 2010.
Our client Onvia tracks this data down to the penny and told Fox Business News today that just 25% of the stimulus project money actually left Washington in 2009, yet the majority of it will reach the private sector this year. Onvia also says that nearly half of all GDP is government spending - this is an astounding figure that may indicate anyone who ignores the government market is shelving half of their business development opportunity.
We'd love to hear from you if the stimulus has impacted your business, for better or worse.
Tags: budget, education, GDP, government, healthcare, stimulus