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SD Per Capita Personal Income up 0.2% in 2016, Behind National Growth

By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2017-11-27

A couple weeks ago, John Tsitrian presented the surprising data that, under the Daugaard Administration, South Dakota’s per capita GDP growth has averaged a meager 0.04%* annual growth rate. The Bureau of Economic Analysis presents another statistic, per capita personal income, on which South Dakota appears to be lagging. According to data released this month, in 2016, South Dakota’s per capita personal income grew just 0.4%, well below the national average of 2.5% in metro areas and 1.0% non-metro areas.

BEA, Personal Income: Percent Change for Counties 2015–2016, 2017.11.16.

Per capita personal income fell in 45 South Dakota counties in 2016 and rose in only 21 counties.

Per capita income Percent change from preceding period
Dollars Rank in State Percent change Rank in State
2014 2015 2016 2016 2015 2016 2016
South Dakota 45,921 47,665 47,834 — 3.8 0.4 —
Aurora 48,581 48,241 44,595 31 -0.7 -7.6 54
Beadle 44,947 48,488 51,081 12 7.9 5.3 2
Bennett 29,473 29,035 27,250 59 -1.5 -6.1 48
Bon Homme 34,548 35,353 36,355 54 2.3 2.8 7
Brookings 41,948 43,543 43,111 40 3.8 -1.0 28
Brown 46,962 49,116 48,978 18 4.6 -0.3 26
Brule 45,910 44,761 41,694 43 -2.5 -6.9 52
Buffalo 23,018 24,018 22,675 65 4.3 -5.6 47
Butte 33,953 33,821 33,108 56 -0.4 -2.1 32
Campbell 49,137 44,676 42,612 41 -9.1 -4.6 43
Charles Mix 41,949 41,648 39,670 48 -0.7 -4.7 44
Clark 51,267 44,229 43,386 35 -13.7 -1.9 31
Clay 34,972 35,732 37,265 53 2.2 4.3 4
Codington 41,333 43,286 43,235 38 4.7 -0.1 22
Corson 29,703 26,868 23,877 60 -9.5 -11.1 59
Custer 41,497 43,108 43,420 34 3.9 0.7 17
Davison 46,370 49,677 49,614 16 7.1 -0.1 23
Day 42,417 43,051 43,296 36 1.5 0.6 19
Deuel 51,679 52,022 50,703 13 0.7 -2.5 33
Dewey 38,491 34,512 33,250 55 -10.3 -3.7 39
Douglas 55,806 57,308 54,674 9 2.7 -4.6 42
Edmunds 47,428 44,289 43,136 39 -6.6 -2.6 34
Fall River 43,508 43,822 43,856 33 0.7 0.1 21
Faulk 50,425 42,133 41,008 46 -16.4 -2.7 35
Grant 53,672 63,810 63,632 4 18.9 -0.3 25
Gregory 43,295 43,588 41,187 45 0.7 -5.5 46
Haakon 55,887 48,515 44,719 29 -13.2 -7.8 55
Hamlin 37,716 38,081 38,770 50 1.0 1.8 9
Hand 53,863 47,784 46,997 21 -11.3 -1.6 30
Hanson 64,004 63,114 60,596 7 -1.4 -4.0 40
Harding 63,451 54,643 46,263 24 -13.9 -15.3 64
Hughes 47,152 48,719 49,892 15 3.3 2.4 8
Hutchinson 48,214 49,092 50,502 14 1.8 2.9 6
Hyde 51,355 48,953 45,683 27 -4.7 -6.7 51
Jackson 28,377 24,796 22,718 64 -12.6 -8.4 57
Jerauld 48,767 48,635 45,559 28 -0.3 -6.3 49
Jones 59,886 55,761 47,662 20 -6.9 -14.5 62
Kingsbury 47,764 47,561 49,160 17 -0.4 3.4 5
Lake 53,352 55,705 53,278 10 4.4 -4.4 41
Lawrence 42,325 44,142 44,670 30 4.3 1.2 15
Lincoln 58,599 62,931 63,203 5 7.4 0.4 20
Lyman 38,963 44,674 37,577 52 14.7 -15.9 65
McCook 44,944 46,257 46,135 25 2.9 -0.3 24
McPherson 39,856 38,314 32,800 57 -3.9 -14.4 61
Marshall 47,317 47,085 43,286 37 -0.5 -8.1 56
Meade 37,808 38,898 39,190 49 2.9 0.8 16
Mellette 30,598 27,274 23,106 63 -10.9 -15.3 63
Miner 43,716 44,683 44,126 32 2.2 -1.2 29
Minnehaha 47,941 50,458 51,167 11 5.3 1.4 11
Moody 46,719 48,285 46,738 23 3.4 -3.2 37
Oglala Lakota 23,509 23,033 23,194 62 -2.0 0.7 18
Pennington 45,104 46,199 46,755 22 2.4 1.2 14
Perkins 42,914 39,678 38,373 51 -7.5 -3.3 38
Potter 100,412 87,411 76,181 3 -12.9 -12.8 60
Roberts 31,756 32,858 32,605 58 3.5 -0.8 27
Sanborn 42,586 43,912 40,719 47 3.1 -7.3 53
Spink 47,706 47,703 48,318 19 0.0 1.3 12
Stanley 61,905 66,790 62,522 6 7.9 -6.4 50
Sully 78,287 59,795 56,833 8 -23.6 -5.0 45
Todd 24,250 24,270 23,582 61 0.1 -2.8 36
Tripp 47,394 45,218 41,322 44 -4.6 -8.6 58
Turner 52,760 67,202 76,806 2 27.4 14.3 1
Union 84,092 94,025 98,329 1 11.8 4.6 3
Walworth 42,749 42,011 42,522 42 -1.7 1.2 13
Yankton 42,932 45,051 45,748 26 4.9 1.5 10
Ziebach 25,058 19,963 16,681 66 -20.3 -16.4 66

The five counties with the highest per capita personal income in 2016 were Union, Turner, Potter, Grant, and Lincoln. The five poorest counties were Ziebach, Buffalo, Jackson, Mellette, and Oglala Lakota. On average, each person in richest Union County made 2.1 times as much money as the state average and 5.9 times as much as each person in poorest Ziebach County.

I larkishly wondered if those income figures might have any correlation with how South Dakotans voted in 2016. I find a statistically significant but weak positive correlation between 2016 per capita personal income and the margin by which Trump beat Clinton in each county. The 2016 increase or decrease in personal income does not provide a strong or reliable correlation with the Trump margin. In plain English, Trump did a little better in the South Dakota counties where people were making the most money; whether counties were making more money or less than in 2015 didn’t appear to affect their vote.

*Correction 16:43 MST: I originally referred to 0.2% as the annual growth rate, but as Mr. Tsitrian himself reminds me in his comment below, his calculations produced 0.2% per capita GDP growth over five years. I have corrected the lead-in stat to reflect Mr. Tsitrian’s attentive analysis. I apologize for the error.

Published in South Dakota

2 Comments

  1. John Tsitrian 2017-11-27 14:37

    Cory, it wasn’t the growth “rate” I was calling attention to. It was the “net” per capita GDP growth over the period 2011-2016, which over the span of those years was +.2%, , which yields a growth “rate” of +.04%. That compares to the net U.S. per capita GDP growth during the period of +6%, which yields a national growth rate of +1.2%. U.S. growth was 30 times greater than SD’s on a per capita basis. BEA is the source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita

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