South Dakota Leads Nation in Personal Income

What a difference a year makes.

Newly released numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis have South Dakota leading America in personal income growth over the first three months of 2022.

The Mount Rushmore State's eight-point-five percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2021 was three-tenths of a percent higher than second-place North Dakota (8.2%). Iowa was the only other start with a bump of more than eight percent (8.1%)

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STATES WITH THE BIGGEST PERSONAL INCOME INCREASES                         (2021 - 4th Quarter to 2022 - 1st Quarter)   

• South Dakota +8.5%
• North Dakota +8.2%
• Iowa +8.1%
• Idaho +7.7%
• New Hampshire +7.7
• Delaware +7.4%
• Vermont +7.4
• Massachusetts +7.1%
• Wisconsin +6.7
• Nebraska +6.5

Experts credit an upswing in farm earnings as the leading contributor to the rise in personal income in the first quarter in the Mount Rushmore State.

Professional, scientific and technical services; construction; administrative and support, and waste management and remediation services were the other leading contributors to the overall growth in earnings.

South Dakota's showing is even more impressive when you consider where the state was just a year ago.

At the end of the second quarter of 2021 (June), South Dakota's personal income was down nearly 13 percent (-12.7%) from the first quarter of the year.

That loss was down to less than one percent (-0.02%) after the third quarter and up nearly three percent by the end of 2021 (+2.9%).

All 50 states saw personal income increases in the first quarter of 2022. Hawaii had the smallest gain at one-point-three percent.

Overall in America, personal income increased by $89.3 billion (0.4 percent) in April.