Midwest boosts research spending

Increased research and development activity across the US is helping provide a strong economic underpinning in the Midwest, where R&D spending has been steadily increasing, according to an analysis by AmeriTrust Corporation.

Threats of prolonged inflation, heightened foreign competition, energy shortages, and national defense slippages have combined to send R&D outlays in 1980 to over $60 billion in the US, an 11 percent increase over 1979, bank officials note.

About 70 percent of total R&D work -- $42.3 billion worth -- is being performed by private industry, which is spending about $28.3 billion of its own money and $14 billion of federal funds.

In the Midwest, the bank notes, close to $15 billion in industrial R&D spending is taking place this year. While California, with its heavy aerospace and electronics activity, ranks as the single leading state in R&D spending, industrial states of the Midwest and East occupy the next seven slots. They are New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinoi s, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.