LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas ranked eighth in the nation in personal income growth in the second quarter this year compared with the first quarter, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis said Tuesday.
Arkansas personal income, the total income received by everyone in the state from all sources, grew by 1.2 percent in the second quarter. The state had total personal income of $101.7 billion in the second quarter, according to the federal agencies’ State Personal Income report.
Per capita income — the average income per person — was not included in Tuesday’s report.
The federal agency only breaks out per capita income on an annual basis because the Census Bureau estimates population only once a year.
North Dakota led the nation in personal income growth in the second quarter with a 2.1 percent jump. Officials attribute higher income in North Dakota to the development of the Bakken shale play.
National growth in personal income slowed to 1.0 percent in the second quarter compared with 1.7 percent growth in the first quarter.
“This is a pretty comprehensive measure of economic activity,” said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. “It’s available quarterly and, relatively speaking, it’s timely.”
The Bureau of Economic Analysis breaks out income by industry sectors.
The biggest industrial contributor to income in Arkansas was health care and social assistance, followed by farming; professional, scientific and technical services; and wholesale trade.
Tuesday’s information corresponded with industry data tracked monthly by the employment report, said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The industries reporting healthy income increases generally were those that have had good employment growth, she said.
Farm proprietors’ income was up substantially on a quarterly basis, but not annually, Deck said. Nondurable goods manufacturing saw a decline in income for the quarter, but income for durable goods manufacturing was up slightly, Deck said.
Income in Arkansas is outpacing inflation. From the second quarter last year to the second quarter of 2012, Arkansas’ personal income increased 3.0 percent, better than the inflation rate of about 1.9 percent over the same 12 months, Pakko said. The 3.0 percent increase was only the 31st best growth in annual income in the country and was below a national growth rate of 3.3 percent, Pakko said.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis also revised personal income figures going back more than three years. The revisions showed that Arkansas’ income from 2009 to 2011, which includes some of the recession, was worse than previously reported, Pakko said.
The agency originally had estimated that the state’s income fell 3.3 percent during the recession, but that was revised down to a decline of 4.7 percent, Pakko said.
“What that means is that we’ve been coming out of a deeper hole than we thought,” Pakko said.
Business, Pages 25 on 09/26/2012