Per capita income growth slows; check out state-level data

Change in personal income per capita, 2017 to 2018
(Stateline map; click here for the interactive version)

Per capita income in the U.S. rose from 2017 to 2018, but more slowly than in recent years, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data, Tim Henderson reports for Stateline, the nonprofit, nonpartisan news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Nationwide, per capita income rose 1.4% in 2017-18 after inflation, a bit less than the previous year's 1.6%. Between 2014 and 2015, it rose 4%, Henderson reports.

"High-paying blue-collar jobs lifted incomes in West Virginia, New York and Illinois last year, even though the states lost residents, while farmers and government workers shared the pain of more stagnant income in Nebraska, Maryland and Washington, D.C.," Henderson reports. "The new per-capita income numbers show how national policies and international markets directly affect state and local pocketbooks. Deregulation in the United States and a heat wave in China boosted coal demand in West Virginia, for example, while overseas mining and farming led to more giant truck manufacturing in Illinois. At the same time, U.S. tariffs hurt Nebraska soybean farmers."