When it comes to jobs and wages, our long economic nightmare may be over. Recent figures show that the average wage in Spokane County has inched back up to the record levels of 2000. Sometime later this year, real wages (adjusted for inflation) should surpass the record.

As with any economic report, there are winners and losers. Hard-hat jobs have continued their sad decline. More than 30 percent of the region’s manufacturing jobs have been lost in a slide that’s lasted nearly four years. Problems in the aluminum and aircraft industry have delivered a body blow to workers who used to make good money at places like Kaiser Aluminum and Triumph Group Inc. (formerly owned by Boeing). The bursting of the dot-com bubble has hurt manufacturers such as Telect. Mining and timber remain in a slump.

Economic analysts say we might as well get used to it, because with global competition, many of those jobs may never come back. But they are impressed that the estimated 4,500 jobs lost in manufacturing have been replaced by good jobs in health care, financial services, insurance, education and government.

Spokane alone has added 1,000 health-care jobs in the past two years, bringing the total to about 50,000. Indeed, an Eastern Washington University study showed that one in five jobs in Spokane County is health-care related. In Kootenai County, health services accounted for 92 percent of job growth in 2001-02.

The transformation of the economy shows the need to pursue reforms that aid the health-care industry, initiatives that strengthen the presence of higher education and research, programs for job retraining and the retention of Fairchild Air Force Base, which employs 5,000 people.

While the health-care industry is expanding, it is still beset by the fact that 60 percent of the major hospitals’ revenues come from Medicaid and Medicare patients. Unfairly, Washington state’s Medicare reimbursement rate lags that of other states, which is causing financial hardships for hospitals and other health-care providers. In effect, when the feds set reimbursement rates it punished Washington for being more cost-efficient than other states. Hospitals and doctors in Florida, for example, are reimbursed at a much higher rate. Congress should fix this inequity.

Bumping up Medicaid reimbursements and expanding coverage will be a challenge for the state, which is still digging out from a budgetary hole. A restoration of recent funding cuts would provide a nice boost to the region’s economy.

On the higher education front, increased funding would provide a lift for the University District, bring a sorely needed expansion to the nursing college, expand biotechnology research and finance job-retraining programs at maxed-out community colleges. The latter is especially important because it helps those who had jobs in the old economy take advantage of opportunities in the new economy.

After three years of bad economic news, it’s refreshing to hear that the region has adapted and is finding new ways to thrive. Now, regional leaders need to push forward with focused initiatives that will ensure that this new economy can improve our quality of life.