Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 21, 1994 TAG: 9407250020
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Virginia ranked 15th among the states based on its 1.8 percent gain in personal income between the final quarter of 1993 and this year's first quarter.
In California, income was down 1.2 percent in the last quarter of 1993 as January's earthquake caused an $18.5 billion drop in rents at an annual rate due to uninsured losses, the Commerce Department said. The effects of the earthquake were widespread enough to cause the incomes of all Americans to rise 1.3 percent in the first quarter instead of 1.5 percent, the department said.
Incomes decreased in North Dakota 1.6 percent, Kansas 0.3 percent, and Nebraska 0.1 percent, as the government reduced wheat subsidies from high levels in the last three months of 1993.
Apart from the four states where incomes declined, only Montana experienced a change in income that did not keep pace with a 0.5 percent increase in prices nationally. The income of Montanans rose only 0.4 percent.
Eight states had income growth that exceeded the national average by more than one percentage point in the first quarter. They were New Mexico and Iowa, each up 3 percent; Minnesota, 2.9 percent; Arizona and Nevada, 2.7 percent; Utah, 2.6 percent; and New Hampshire and Louisiana, each 2.4 percent.
The Commerce Department said income growth was helped by large increases in farm income in Iowa, Minnesota, Arizona and Louisiana.
Iowa and Minnesota rebounded from serious crop losses in the second half of 1993 due to major flooding in the Midwest.
Increases in federal subsidy payments to cotton farmers in Arizona and cotton and rice farmers in Louisiana boosted income in those two states.
by CNB