S.C. growth ranked 6th in nation Personal income rose 10.1% in state Staff and wire reports
Personal income grew 10.1 percent in South Carolina in the year ending in June, enough to rank the state sixth best in the country, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. "This is part of a pattern," said Tucker Eskew, spokesman for Gov. Carroll Campbell. "Our per capita income has taken a major leap in the last several years. The continuation of that trend is welcome and, frankly, not unexpected." He attributed the increase to growth in the state's industrial base and diversification of the economy. Ahead of South Carolina were Nevada, Delaware, Florida, Maine and Hawaii. Overall, coastal states, led by the Far West, outpaced the nation in nonfarm personal income growth in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said. The interior states advanced more slowly than the U.S. average. The department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said the Far West's nonfarm income grew 9.6 percent from the second quarter of 1988 to the same period this year. The region's income growth was bolstered by strength in construction and manufacturing, particularly aircraft production. The Boeing Co. is headquartered in Washington state and the Douglas Aircraft Division of McDonnell Douglas Corp. is in California. The growth rate in the Far West - which also includes Oregon and the national income growth leader, Nevada - was 1.2 percentage points above the U.S. average of 8.4 percent, the bureau said. In each of the other coastal regions, however, growth was only somewhat above the national average - up 8.7 percent in the Southeast, 8.6 percent in New England and 8.5 in the mid-Atlantic. Nonfarm personal incomes in the interior states advanced only 7.5 percent, pulled down in large part by poor growth in the Plains states and barely keeping above the 5.2 percent inflation rate for the 12 months ending in June. Growth in the Plains states was 6.9 percent, following the Rocky Mountain states, which were up 7.5 percent; the Southwest, up 7.7 percent, and the Great Lakes, up 7.9 percent. In each of the Plains states - Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota - nonfarm income grew more slowly than the 8.4 percent national average. Nevada, with its tourism and mining industries, continued to lead the country in income growth, up 12.8 percent, while Wyoming remained mired at the bottom of the list with a 3.6 percent growth rate. Ranked with Wyoming at the bottom were: North Dakota, up 4.3 percent; Louisiana, 5.9 percent; South Dakota, 6 percent; Montana, 6.3 percent; Iowa, 6.4 percent; Oklahoma, 6.4 percent; Nebraska, 6.6 percent; Kansas, 6.7 percent, and New Mexico, 6.8 percent. The Commerce Department focuses on changes in nonfarm income as a better indication of a region's prosperity because of the often erratic nature of farm income.
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