PROVIDENCE – The Massachusetts Current Economic Index increased 3.8 percent year over year to a value of 224 in December, according to MassBenchmarks Thursday.
The report said that the Bay State’s Leading Economic Index, a projected annualized growth rate for the next six months, was 2.5 percent.
The report said that the calculated average annual economic growth in 2018 for Massachusetts was 3.1 percent, compared with a national growth of 2.9 percent.
MassBenchmarks said that the Massachusetts economy was “strong and operating a near full capacity.” Unemployment in December was 3.3 percent in the state, but the report noted that there are still 25,000 part-time workers who would like to work full time when compared to the time prior to the previous recession.
Wage and salary income was 4.9 percent higher in December 2018 than in December 2017, compared with a U.S. growth of 4.3 percent in that time.
In December, Massachusetts had five economic indicators that forecast above-trend growth while the state had four indicators that projected below-trend growth.
The MassBenchmarks project is an initiative of the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute and Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
