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 information presented here does 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 62.4 million people accounted for 20 percent of the total U.S. population in 2008.
The District also ranks first in the size of its economy:
Its 26.4 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 2008.
Altogether, District states accounted for approximately 21 percent of the nation’s exports of manufactured goods in 2008.
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, leisure and hospitality, and government.
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 17.2 billion currency notes in 2008, which is about 68.4 million notes per business day.
The Twelfth District processed 268.7 million paper commercial checks in 2008 and 1.1 billion commercial Check 21 transactions.
Banking Environment
As of September 30, 2009, there were 43 state member banks, 102 national banks, and 419 state-chartered, non-member banks in the District. In addition, the District is home to 76 U.S. branches, agencies, and representative offices of foreign banks and six Edge Act agreement corporations.
Financial Situation
The Twelfth District had assets of $208.1 billion and operating expenses of $396 million as of December 31, 2008.
Key Facts about the Federal Reserve System
System Earnings
During 2008, the Federal Reserve System’s earnings totaled $38.7 billion. Of this amount, approximately $31.7 billion was distributed to the United States Treasury and the Twelfth District’s share was $3.7 billion.
Payments
In 2008, the Federal Reserve System cleared 9.5 billion checks, consisting of 2.2 billion paper checks and 7.3 billion electronic Check 21 transactions. In addition, 10.1 billion commercial and 1.2 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 2008, the Federal Reserve System paid $500.4 million to the BEP for printing currency and related costs. During fiscal* year 2009, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing produced approximately 26 million pieces of currency each day with a face value of approximately $907 million.
In fiscal* year 2009, 42.3 percent of notes printed were $1 notes.
The Fed's Cash Services department processes currency using high speed computer controlled machines that each verify currency at the rate of approximately 1,616 notes per minute. The machines intercept potential counterfeits and destroy old, worn out notes.
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.
