A new study of data from before the COVID-19 pandemic shows that Louisiana is among the worst states in terms of growth of private sources of revenue.
Residents of some Midwestern and Mountain states have earned the highest capita income over the past four years, a Stateline study shows, as the festival for workers has raised wages in affordable places to live.
With the COVID-19 pandemic now in the nation’s rearview mirror, Stateline’s research offers a more comprehensive view of how citizens of some states have benefited economically (and others have not), as policy decisions and potential choices by Americans have rearranged outcomes from state to state.
The oil and fuel industry has higher capita incomes for the citizens of North and South Dakota. Mountainous states like Utah have noted high revenues from California, Oregon, and Texas.
The states where the inflation-adjusted revenue source has declined are Alaska, where oil extraction is in long-term decline, as well as Georgia and Maryland.
Inflation has pushed wages down to the max in the West and South, and costs for customers rose about 20% in those regions between mid-2019 and mid-2023, according to figures from the U. S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. U. S. Census Bureau, compiled for Stateline through the Urban-Brookings. Tax. Policy Center in Washington, D. C. Inflation declined in the Midwest, about 19% and about 16% in the Northeast.
Stateline’s research calculated private sources of income earnings consistent with capita after regional inflation between the second quarter of 2019, before the pandemic, and the second quarter of 2023, the latest available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Capita value, which includes everything from wages to business revenue sources to pandemic relief payments, is used as a barometer of states’ economic fitness.
Many states in the Mountain West, Midwest, and New England that have experienced large increases in revenue have scenic or affordable spaces that have attracted remote workers because of a lower living burden and proximity to recreation.
“Things changed quickly. Now there are festivals for staff and upward pressure on wages, and other people in Oregon and California are saying, “Hey, maybe I live next to five national parks. It’s an amazing place,” said Shawn Teigen, president of the Utah Foundation, a nonprofit that monitors trends in the mountain state.
Newcomers to Utah, for example, brought more sources of income and smaller families than the long-standing Mormon population, expanding in ways consistent with the capita source of income, he noted. And the festival’s lack of staff in facilities and production has forced employers to pay more.
“It used to be a position where we could bring in corporations and say, ‘You can pay minimum wage and other people will take the jobs because life here is cheap,'” he said.
Inflation-adjusted income consistent with capita income in Utah has increased about 8% since 2019. Colorado, Maine, Montana and Nebraska grew about the same. Revenues in Arizona, Idaho and Missouri rose about 7%.
But gains came in North Dakota and South Dakota, where inflation-adjusted earnings rose 11% and 9%, respectively.
North Dakota’s steady private income source reached $73,414, making it the twelfth highest source of income in the country, up from 16th place in 2019. The gains put it ahead of states such as Illinois, Minnesota and Virginia.
Growth in North Dakota’s energy sector continues to advance, with taxable sector sales and purchases up more than 50% in recent quarters from a year earlier, according to state estimates through mid-2023.
Unemployment has remained below 3%, and in recent years has remained low even in the winter months, when outdoor paint shutters closed in incredibly cold weather, said Kevin Iverson, a demographer at the North Dakota State Data Center.
The biggest hurdle now is finding more people to hire, Iverson said.
“It’s no longer unexpected to see corporations spend their advertising budget on recruiting staff instead of customers,” Iverson said. The state recently created an Office of Legal Immigration to help recruit foreign and immigrant personnel who are already legal to work in the United States.
As of mid-2023, Louisiana citizens’ average non-public earnings source was $57,204, ranking it 44th among 50 states and Washington, D. C. The average earnings source increased 1. 7% compared to 2019, making Louisiana one of six states with less than 2% expansion during the period. South Carolina (1. 2%), Connecticut (1. 1%), Delaware (0. 7%), Maryland (-0. 1%) and Georgia (-0. 3%) were the other states with the lowest gains. expansion.
Incomes haven’t risen as much in most of the Northeast, in part because low-wage service workers are earning more than the region’s predominant high-income workers, said Lucy Dadayan, senior research associate at Urban-Brookings Tax Policy. Some of the highest-income regions in the country, including Connecticut and the District of Columbia, were in the bottom 10 in terms of earnings growth. New Jersey and New York were not in the lead.
However, these states still have the largest source of revenue. Connecticut fell to third place in overall source of nonpublic revenue consistent with capita with $86,674, up from number two in 2019, Massachusetts with $88,197 and the District of Columbia with $100,971. .
“Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey have a higher percentage of taxpayers with high revenue streams, and salaries for staff with low revenue sources have increased much more during the pandemic,” Dadayan wrote in an email. of the income source of high-income workers depends on the performance of the stock market, which declined in 2022. “
The effect on private sources of profit has affected government profits. In Connecticut, tax revenue from private sources of profit fell to $1. 3 billion in fiscal year 2023, a nearly one-third decrease from the previous year and erasing gains from fiscal year 2019, according to records from the state comptroller’s office. Comptroller Sean Scanlon blamed the decline on stock market losses in 2022 in his annual report to the governor.
SUPPORT THE NEWS YOU SHARE.
However, Connecticut’s General Fund earnings posted an overall surplus in fiscal 2023 due to increases in sales and use taxes as the hotel and tourism sectors recovered. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont signed a tax cut bill into law in June.
Alaska and North Dakota have oil-driven economies, but the shale boom in North Dakota continues to rise, while Alaska’s production has been declining since the 1980s, helping North Dakota reach the highest level of profit expansion statistics while Alaska sank to the lowest level. down. Alaska’s steady source of capita earnings has fallen 2. 4% after inflation over the past four years.
North Dakota landowners are seeing continued gains from renting oil on personal land. However, Alaska’s oil is largely on public lands that have seen the most discounts on drilling fees, said John Connaughton, a professor of monetary economics at the University of North Carolina. Belk College of Business in Charlotte.
State-by-state accumulation of gains in the Midwest was “all over the place,” from North Dakota’s double-digit percentage to just 2% in Wisconsin and 3% in Kansas and Michigan, said Nina Mast, who has studied the region’s wage trends in the pandemic in October for the Economic Policy Institute. a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D. C.
The region as a whole has seen slower wage expansion than other pandemic-hit regions through 2022, threatening to increase inequality and hurt middle-class workers, who lack union representation, Mast said.
Michigan became the first state to repeal an anti-union “right-to-work” law in March, a move that could help empower staff, Mast said. “This was a historic milestone that can have big effects for staffing in the Midwest. “
Stateline is owned by States Newsroom, a grant-funded nonprofit news network and donor coalition as a 501c public charity(3). Stateline maintains its editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger if you have questions: [email protected]. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.
by Tim Henderson, Louisiana Illuminator October 31, 2023
A new study of data from before the COVID-19 pandemic shows that Louisiana is among the worst states in terms of growth of private sources of revenue.
Residents of some Midwestern and Mountain states have earned the highest capita income over the past four years, a Stateline study shows, as the festival for workers has raised wages in affordable places to live.
With the COVID-19 pandemic now in the nation’s rearview mirror, Stateline’s research offers a more comprehensive view of how citizens of some states have benefited economically (and others have not), as policy decisions and potential choices by Americans have rearranged outcomes from state to state.
The oil and fuel industry has higher capita incomes for the citizens of North and South Dakota. Mountainous states like Utah have noted high revenues from California, Oregon, and Texas.
The states where the inflation-adjusted revenue source has declined are Alaska, where oil extraction is in long-term decline, as well as Georgia and Maryland.
Inflation has pushed wages down to the max in the West and South, and costs for customers rose about 20% in those regions between mid-2019 and mid-2023, according to figures from the U. S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. U. S. Census Bureau, compiled for Stateline through the Urban-Brookings. Tax. Policy Center in Washington, D. C. Inflation declined in the Midwest, about 19% and about 16% in the Northeast.
Stateline’s research calculated private sources of income earnings consistent with capita after regional inflation between the second quarter of 2019, before the pandemic, and the second quarter of 2023, the latest available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Capita value, which includes everything from wages to business revenue sources to pandemic relief payments, is used as a barometer of states’ economic fitness.
Many states in the Mountain West, Midwest, and New England that have experienced large increases in revenue have scenic or affordable spaces that have attracted remote workers because of a lower living burden and proximity to recreation.
“Things changed quickly. Now there are festivals for staff and upward pressure on wages, and other people in Oregon and California are saying, “Hey, maybe I live next to five national parks. It’s an amazing place,” said Shawn Teigen, president of the Utah Foundation, a nonprofit that monitors trends in the mountain state.
Newcomers to Utah, for example, brought more sources of income and smaller families than the long-standing Mormon population, expanding in ways consistent with the capita source of income, he noted. And the festival’s lack of staff in facilities and production has forced employers to pay more.
“It used to be a position where we could bring in corporations and say, ‘You can pay minimum wage and other people will take the jobs because life here is cheap,'” he said.
Inflation-adjusted income in line with capita income in Utah has increased approximately 8% since 2019. Incomes in Colorado, Maine, Montana and Nebraska have increased by roughly the same proportion. Revenues in Arizona, Idaho and Missouri rose about 7%.
But gains came in North Dakota and South Dakota, where inflation-adjusted earnings rose 11% and 9%, respectively.
North Dakota’s steady private income source reached $73,414, making it the twelfth highest source of income in the country, up from 16th place in 2019. The gains put it ahead of states such as Illinois, Minnesota and Virginia.
Growth in North Dakota’s energy sector continues to advance, with taxable sector sales and purchases up more than 50% in recent quarters from a year earlier, according to state estimates through mid-2023.
Unemployment has remained below 3%, and in recent years has remained low even in the winter months, when outdoor paint shutters closed in incredibly cold weather, said Kevin Iverson, a demographer at the North Dakota State Data Center.
The biggest hurdle now is finding more people to hire, Iverson said.
“It’s no longer unexpected to see companies spend their advertising budget on hiring staff instead of customers,” Iverson said. The state recently created an Office of Legal Immigration to help recruit foreign and immigrant personnel who are already legal to work in the United States.
As of mid-2023, the average non-public source of income for Louisiana citizens was $57,204, ranking it 44th among 50 states and Washington, D. C. The average revenue source increased by 1. 7% compared to 2019, making Louisiana one of six states with expansion of less than 2% during the period. South Carolina (1. 2%), Connecticut (1. 1%), Delaware (0. 7%), Maryland (-0. 1%) and Georgia (-0. 3%) were the other states with the lowest source of revenue expansion.
Incomes haven’t risen as much in most of the Northeast, in part because low-wage service workers are earning more than the region’s predominant high-income workers, said Lucy Dadayan, senior research associate at Urban-Brookings Tax Policy. Some of the highest-income regions in the country, including Connecticut and the District of Columbia, were in the bottom 10 in terms of earnings growth. New Jersey and New York were not in the lead.
However, these states still have the largest source of revenue. Connecticut fell to third place in overall source of nonpublic revenue consistent per capita with $86,674, down from number two in 2019, Massachusetts with $88,197 and the District of Columbia with $100,971. .
“Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey have a higher percentage of taxpayers with high revenue streams, and salaries for staff with low revenue sources have increased much more during the pandemic,” Dadayan wrote in an email. of the income source of high-income workers depends on the performance of the stock market, which declined in 2022. “
The effect on private sources of profit has affected government profits. In Connecticut, tax revenue from private sources of profit fell to $1. 3 billion in fiscal year 2023, a nearly one-third decrease from the previous year and erasing gains from fiscal year 2019, according to records from the state comptroller’s office. Comptroller Sean Scanlon blamed the decline on stock market losses in 2022 in his annual report to the governor.
SUPPORT THE NEWS YOU SHARE.
However, Connecticut’s General Fund earnings posted an overall surplus in fiscal 2023 due to increases in sales and use taxes as the hotel and tourism sectors recovered. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont signed a tax cut bill into law in June.
Alaska and North Dakota have oil-driven economies, but the shale boom in North Dakota continues to rise, while Alaska’s production has been declining since the 1980s, helping North Dakota reach the highest level of profit expansion statistics while Alaska sank to the lowest level. down. Alaska’s steady source of capita earnings has fallen 2. 4% after inflation over the past four years.
North Dakota landowners are seeing continued gains from renting oil on personal land. However, Alaska’s oil is largely on public lands that have seen the most discounts on drilling fees, said John Connaughton, a professor of monetary economics at the University of North Carolina. Belk College of Business in Charlotte.
State-by-state accumulation of gains in the Midwest was “all over the place,” from North Dakota’s double-digit percentage to just 2% in Wisconsin and 3% in Kansas and Michigan, said Nina Mast, who has studied the region’s wage trends in the pandemic in October for the Economic Policy Institute. a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D. C.
The region as a whole saw slower wage expansion than other pandemic-hit regions through 2022, threatening to increase inequality and hurt middle-class workers, who lack union representation, Mast said.
Michigan became the first state to repeal an anti-union “right-to-work” law in March, a move that could help empower staff, Mast said. “This was a historic milestone that can have big effects for staffing in the Midwest. “
Stateline is owned by States Newsroom, a grant-funded nonprofit news network and donor coalition as a 501c public charity(3). Stateline maintains its editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger if you have questions: info@stateline. org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.
Louisiana Illuminator is owned by States Newsroom, a network of grant-backed news bureaus and a coalition of donors as a 501c public charity(3). Louisiana Illuminator maintains its editorial independence. Please contact editor Greg LaRose if you have any questions: info@lailluminator. com. Follow the Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.
Tim Henderson has been a reporter for the Miami Herald, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Journal News in the suburbs of New York City. Henderson became fascinated with knowledge of the census in the early 1990s, when AOL introduced the first automated reports. then, he has published articles on demographic trends in South Florida, adding research on housing affordability included in the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning “House of Lies” series for the Miami Herald, and an award-winning investigation into irregularities in public pensions for The Journal. He has been a member and faculty member of the National Institute of Computer-Aided Reporting since its inception 20 years ago, specializing in online knowledge and visualization, as well as demographics.
TOOLKIT FOR DEMOCRACY
The Louisiana Illuminator is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization whose project is to shed light on how decisions are made in Baton Rouge and how they impact the lives of Louisianans every day. Our in-depth research, reports, newsletters, and observation help citizens perceive how state policies help or hurt them and their neighbors across the state.
Our stories can be republished online or in print under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4. 0 license. We ask that you edit them just for pleasure or for short, provide attribution and link to our website.