Oklahoma charts rapid personal income growth
NEWSOK: December 20, 2014 Oklahoma’s personal earnings growth rate has been among the fastest in the nation over the past five years, in large part due to the energy industry, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Commerce Department.
North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas have had the highest percentage earnings growth since the Great Recession ended in the second quarter of 2009, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Those states also have seen increases for earnings in energy sector jobs, said David Lenze, an economist for the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
“The industry that contributed the most to personal income grown was mining, which includes oil and gas jobs,” Lenze said.
Energy sector earnings topped $16 million in Oklahoma during the third quarter of 2014, up from about $7 million in the second quarter of 2009, which economists mark as the end of the Great Recession, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
According to those numbers, Oklahoma has seen more than a 128 percent increase in energy sector earnings since the end of the Great Recession.
Earnings are just a portion of how the Bureau of Economic Analysis calculates personal income growth, Lenze said. The bureau charts personal income growth by tracking net earnings by place of residence, property income, and personal current transfer receipts.
Over the 12-month period ending in November, Oklahoma added 2,500 new energy sector jobs, a 4.2 percent increase, according to data from the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission released Friday.
For the third quarter of 2014, Oklahoma ranked No. 10 in the nation for personal income growth, at a rate of 1.1 percent.
Texas had the highest growth rate for personal income for the third quarter of the year, at 1.4 percent.
Across the nation, state personal income growth averaged 1 percent in the third quarter of 2014, down from 1.2 percent in the second quarter, according to estimates released Friday by the Commerce Department.
