Yesterday I reviewed per capita personal incomes by state from 1990 to 2012 as reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s a long enough time-frame to eliminate any outliers. In terms of average annual growth in per capita income growth over that time period, most of the top ten are “red” states. Washington, D.C. was number two, but unlike the pencil pushers at the Dept. of Commerce, I don’t consider it to be a state. The fact that it’s number two tells you all you need to know about government overreach at the federal level. Many of the top ten states are as far away from D.C. or California (the D.C. of the west) as you can get. And I was surprised that Vermont made the list, but then again the best thing going for it is, it isn’t New York. Here’s the list of the states and their average growth rate for the last 23 years. These ten states had income growth well above the U.S. average of 3.69%.
Top Ten States Avg. Personal Income Growth per Year
- North Dakota 5.65%
- Wyoming 4.76%
- South Dakota 4.72%
- Louisiana 4.48%
- Mississippi 4.31%
- Oklahoma 4.18%
- Montana 4.16%
- Iowa 4.16%
- Vermont 4.16%
- Texas 4.12%
Originally posted June 26, 2013.
