Personal income still rising in Idaho. Really.
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 15 years, 3 months AGO
From the Idaho Department of Labor:
The first fractional decline in wages in a year and relatively weak nonfarm business profits were more than offset by higher farm returns and investment earnings to boost Idaho personal income 1.8 percent in the first three months of 2011.
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated personal income – the total of wages, business profits, investment earnings and transfer payments like Social Security and unemployment benefits – at a record $52.3 billion, on an annualized basis, during the first quarter.
The $928 million increase in the January-March period from the final quarter of 2010 was the largest annualized quarterly increase since the recession began in December 2007. Although job growth in Idaho has been stagnant and unemployment remains at or near record levels, the recession officially ended in June 2009. After three straight quarterly declines, personal income began increasing again in the summer of 2009.
Idaho’s income growth matched the national growth rate of 1.8 percent and ranked 26th among the states. It was the third quarter in the last four that personal income growth in Idaho matched the national rate. Idaho nearly doubled the national growth rate in the July-September quarter 2010 for a third-quarter ranking of 10th.
Wage and salary payments fell a tenth of a percent from the fourth quarter, and while business profits were up 5.7 percent, more than three quarters of that growth was on Idaho’s farms and ranches. Investment earnings rose 2.2 percent, on an annualized basis, to nearly $10 billion to provide the significant boost in personal income.
Industry earnings, a combination of wages and profits, rose just 0.8 percent from the final three months of 2010 due primarily to an almost 14 percent increase in farm earnings. That put Idaho in the bottom third of the states. Nonfarm earnings were up just a tenth of a percent. Modest increases in most sectors were offset by a 4.6 percent decline in manufacturing and a 2.3 percent drop in real estate. Construction continued falling for the third straight quarter and the 15th of the last 19 quarters.