Like a big bowl of ice cream, a beautiful summer day, or a three-day weekend, a larger income can be filed in the category of “Things Everyone Likes.” If you are especially fond of the latter, and seeing your income grow never gets old, then the following list of ten states where personal incomes are booming will be of interest to you. 24/7 Wall St. compiled the list after reviewing personal income data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis for each state between 2010 and 2015.
In this report, personal income is the sum of the net earnings of all people from all sources before taxes. Typically, wages and salaries account for the biggest share of this net income. The places where net income grew the most are areas where there are strong, flourishing industries that helped to not only weather the storm of the recession, but also aided in the recovery.
For example, the U.S. mining sector grew by 36.8 percent between 2010 and 2014, the largest growth for any single industry. Due to this, states with large mining sectors saw their incomes grow the fastest, despite mining only accounting for 2.6 percent of the national economy. This explains why North Dakota, where mining accounts for the largest share of the state GDP, experienced the largest growth in personal income of 27.9 percent, which was the fastest rate in the country. The per capita personal income for 2015 in North Dakota was $54,448, the second highest in the country and the unemployment rate was 2.7 percent, which was the lowest in the country.
Texas experienced the second fastest growth rate for personal income between 2010 and 2015 at 23.5 percent. Over the past year, however, income growth has been slowing as the energy-dependent state has been affected by the oil price crash. In 2015, Texas’ income only grew by 4 percent. Still, between 2010 and 2014 the state’s mining sector grew by 65.7 percent and personal income was helped in 2015 by bonuses paid to workers after the United Auto Workers were able to successfully ratify their new contracts.
California rounds out the top three on the list with personal income growth between 2010 and 2015 of 22.7 percent. It wasn’t the mining sector that helped California, but its information sector, which includes many companies in Silicon Valley. The state’s information sector grew by 18.4 percent between 2010 and 2014 and now accounts for 8.1 percent of the state’s overall economy.
For 24/7 Wall St.’s full list, click the link below.
