The Milken Institute returned Northwest Arkansas, home of Siloam Springs, to its Top 25 Best-Performing Cities, releasing a report that showed the strength of the region's economy compared to all the nation's metropolitan statistical areas. Northwest Arkansas (the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers MSA) moved up five spots and now sits at No. 25 in the annual ranking. The ranking is based on each large metropolitan area’s job growth, wage growth, high-tech job growth and high-tech wage growth.

Northwest Arkansas is home to almost a half-million people, with Benton and Washington counties in particular experiencing an average population growth of at least 2.4 percent; Siloam Springs is located in Benton County. This annual growth has been faster than the U.S. average since 1971 and the fastest of any MSA in Arkansas, according to a profile by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Real metropolitan gross domestic product (GDP) in the Northwest Arkansas region increased by 3.8% between 2018 and 2020, bringing the GDP to $25.2 billion, a $3.3 billion increase since 2015. The region’s five-year average annual growth rate from 2013 to 2018 was 2.9%, about 1.8% higher than that of the nation and 2.4% higher than the average growth rate in the state of Arkansas..

Northwest Arkansas business establishment growth from 2019 to 2021 was 6.0%, higher than the national growth rates. The five-year change in the number of establishments from 12,653 in 2016 to 14,750 in 2021 represents an annual increase of 2.9%, higher than the growth rate in Arkansas and the nation.

The Northwest Arkansas Council maintains a library of data downloads for the entire metro area.