Lately, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis has been crunching numbers looking at so called “personal income” growth. That figure includes all pre-tax income: wages, salaries, dividends, annuities, Social Security checks…everything.
And for the third quarter of 2011, the growth was rather modest. In its media release, the Bureau of Economic Analysis noted:
“State personal income growth slowed to 0.1 percent, on average, in the third quarter of 2011. Growth rates ranged from –0.4 percent in West Virginia to 0.6 percent in Washington State. Personal income fell or was unchanged in twenty states and grew 0.2 percent in the other thirty.”
New Hampshire, incidentally, falls into that “other thirty” category, with a growth rate of 0.2 percent. Vermont just misses Middling Thirty distinction…with a personal income growth rate of 0.0 percent. Meanwhile, two other New England states fall into the bottom five nationally. Here’s a table based on work done by the Bureau of Economic Analysis showing how the region stacks up.
