About this project

This project was developed by Scott Pelton as an independent research project for our community.

It was not commissioned or paid for by any agency or organization.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure comes from public records: City of Bellingham business licenses and vacancy counts, Washington Department of Revenue sales and tax data, and federal jobs and border statistics. Part of the data came from a public records request. Each chart names its source.

What is not posted

The business-by-business license list and two files matched to it are not posted, because they list business names and state tax IDs. The summary tables in the report show the same totals.

Downloads

The full report is available as a PDF, and the counts behind the charts are linked from the appendix.