Advertisement

California loses ground in per capita personal income

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Estimates released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that the state’s total personal income fell 2.5% from 2008 to 2009.

California’s per capita personal income, at $42,325, ranked 10th in the nation in 2009.

The BEA’s nifty tool also lets you figure out how much people make in other counties, and how that’s changed from the previous year.

Advertisement

It may be tough to make ends meet in Los Angeles County, where per capita personal income was $42,265 in 2008, the most recent year for which county information is available, but at least you don’t live in Buffalo County, S.D., where the per capita personal income was $12,558. Those short on money might consider moving to Loving County, Texas, where people per capita made $140,275, probably because it’s the least populated county in the country.

Thanks to its huge population, Los Angeles County didn’t stack up well against other areas in the state in 2008: It ranked 19th in per capita personal income. Marin County ranked first in the state, with a per capita personal income of $93,159, followed by San Mateo County at $73,839 and San Francisco County at $72,712.

The BEA data also measures which counties experienced the fastest income growth from 2007 to 2008. Midwest counties fared the best, accounting for 29 of the 31 fastest growing areas, because of a surge in farm income. Personal income grew 2.9% in the nation in 2008 after rising 5.5% in 2007, perhaps portending the economic slowdown that would soon follow.

-- Alana Semuels

Advertisement