San Francisco is the headquarters of the Twelfth Federal Reserve District, which includes the nine western states—Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington—plus American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Branch offices are located in Los Angeles, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Seattle, with a cash processing center in Phoenix. The data presented in this document do not include the District's island territories.
Geography and Demographics
Of the Twelve Federal Reserve Districts, the Twelfth District is the largest, covering about 1.3 million square miles, or 35 percent of the nation's area.
The District's estimated 61.8 million people accounted for 20 percent of the total U.S. population in 2007.
The District also ranks first in the size of its economy:
Its 26.6 million workers accounted for about 19 percent of the nation's total nonfarm employment and they earned around 21 percent of the nation's total personal income in 2007.
Altogether, District states accounted for approximately 22 percent of the nation's exports of manufactured goods in 2007.
In broad terms, the District's industry mix mirrors that of the rest of the nation.
However, the District employs a slightly higher share of workers in the following major sectors: construction, information, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality.
Several of the nation's leading information technology (IT) centers are located in the District. As a percentage of total nonfarm workers, the District employs a considerably larger
share of IT workers than the rest of the nation. Moreover, these District workers on average earn more in annual wages than their counterparts in the rest of the nation.
Cash and Check Processing
The Twelfth District processed 18.3 billion currency notes in 2007, which is about 73.2 million notes per day.
The Twelfth District processed 665.8 million paper commercial checks in 2007 and 1.2 billion commercial Check 21 transactions.
Banking Environment
As of June 30, 2008, there were 45 state member banks, 107 national banks, and 442 state-chartered, non-member banks in the District. In addition, the District is home to 88 U.S. branches, agencies, and representative offices of foreign banks and 7 Edge Act agreement corporations.
Financial Situation
The Twelfth District had assets of $100.3 billion and operating expenses of $419 million as of December 31, 2007.
Key Facts about the Federal Reserve System
System Earnings
During 2007, the Federal Reserve System's earnings totaled $41.9 billion. Of this amount, approximately $34.4 billion was distributed to the United States Treasury and the Twelfth District's share was $4.1 billion.
Payments
In 2007, the Federal Reserve System cleared 10 billion commercial checks, consisting of 5.8 billion paper checks and 4.2 billion electronic Check 21 transactions. In addition, 9.4 billion commercial and 1 billion government payments were processed as Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions. The Federal Reserve processes approximately one-third of the paper items that ultimately clear as checks and three-fourths of the ACH payments in the country.
Currency
A common misconception is that the Fed prints money, but it is actually the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) that prints U.S. currency. In 2007, the Federal Reserve System paid $576 million to the BEP for printing currency and
related costs. During fiscal year 2007*, the BEP produced approximately 38 million pieces of currency each day with a face value of approximately $750 million.
On average, 45 percent of notes printed are $1 notes.
The Fed's Cash Services department processes currency on high speed computer controlled machines that verify currency at the rate of approximately 1,290 notes per minute. The machines are equipped with numerous sensors that authenticate currency, intercept potential counterfeits, and destroy unfit currency.
* BEP fiscal year ended in September 2007.
The average life of United States currency corresponds to the note's denomination:
Of the total U.S. currency in worldwide circulation, up to two thirds is held outside
of the United States.
