The Daugaard Adminsitration touts Bureau of Economic Analysis data showing South Dakota's per capita personal income grew 3.5% last year. South Dakota had the sixth-largest rate of growth and the 22nd highest per capita personal income among all fifty states.
We continue to outpace most other states in personal income growth this year. During the second quarter, we tied Nebraska for a nation-leading 2.2% growth rate, thanks in large part to high crop prices.
However, even with our healthy growth rate, our personal income is still just a tick below the national average. Nationwide, per capita personal income in 2010 was $39,945. In South Dakota, it was $39,593.
We're also still having to run more laps in the hamster wheel to make that growth happen. Check out our state wage data for May 2010. Of the hundreds of thousands of jobs available in South Dakota, 32% had a median hourly wage of $10.75. If you take such a job and can get 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, you will not earn enough to keep a family of three out of poverty. 84% of jobs in South Dakota offer median annual wages below 200% of the poverty line for a family of three.
And even if personal income grew overall in South Dakota, remember that there are a lot of people (state employees, teachers) who haven't seen any gains in the last couple three years. I can't help wondering how much of that 3.5% growth has been concentrating at the top.
Update 07:17 MDT: Governor Daugaard notes that many businesses that want to expand tell him that they struggle to find skilled workers. Might those skilled workers be scarce because they can get higher wages in other states?
Or maybe it is hard to find skilled workers because we won't give diddly squat to support education!
"Or maybe it is hard to find skilled workers because we won’t give diddly squat to support education!"
Since when was it the responsiblity of taxpayers to provide free job training to corporate socialists?
Skilled workers might shy away from our state (either staying or coming) because they think we have one or more of the following less-than-alluring characteristics:
1. Low wage scale
2. Severe winters
3. Bleak landscape
4. Socially ultra-conservative people
5. Lack of cultural diversity
Now, I'm not saying that all, or even any, of these things are necessarily true, and even if some of them are, a few hardy souls will find them desirable, not repellant.
However, if I were a recent engineering or medical-school grad from Harvard or Caltech or the University of Minnesota, age 22 to 26 or 27, I'd probably look at other places besides South Dakota. Say Miami, Los Angeles, or Hawaii? I lived and toiled in those places before you all got stuck with me.
Heck, it took me until age 50 to discover the gold in these hills (that was in 2004).
It takes all kinds to make a world. We do ourselves no favors by trying to turn ourselves into folks that we just fundamentally ain't meant to be, and then beating ourselves up because we can't make it happen.
South Dakota's relatively low cost of living continues to make our state a pretty good place to start one's own business -- while Washington still allows it. Of course we can get better, though, and a good education system is an absolute imperative for that.
You're an intellectual, Cory, and you're still out here!
Stan,
Great list.
It seems to me that South Dakota's biggest problem is that it is trying to model itself after Pittsburg when all of the money is moving from places like the Steel City to places like Austin or Silicon Valley. The state needs to encourage jobs across the spectrum not just light manufacturing that seems to be focus. I'm willing to bet that business and government leaders would have worked like gangbusters to prevent Steve Jobs from locating his headquarters here.
I agree that people shouldn't try to be what they aren't but sometimes it seems as if South Dakota tries to drive away everyone who isn't like the folks who are already here. I know 20 below is supposed to keep away the riff raff, but the number of folks that gets classified as riff raff seems to get larger every year.
I'll leave it to our intellectual host to determine why that is.