North Dakota Leads Nation In Personal Income Growth. Again. Per Capita, North Dakota Ranks Second, Right Behind Connecticut

The Dickinson Press is reporting.

The state’s personal income increased 7.6 percent last year to $41.3 billion, compared with a national average increase of 2.6 percent, which was down from 4.2 percent in 2012, according to bureau estimates.

Utah ranked second in the nation with 4 percent growth in personal income. West Virginia saw the smallest growth at 1.5 percent.

Minnesota ranked 17th with 2.8 percent growth in personal income, while Montana ranked 21st with 2.7 percent growth and South Dakota ranked 45th with 1.8 percent growth.

North Dakota’s average per-capita personal income climbed 4 percent to $57,084 last year, which was second highest among states behind Connecticut’s $60,847 and nearly double the state’s per-capita personal income of $29,815 in 2004. The national average last year was $44,543.

I think The Dickinson Press headline missed the big story, but being second is never a headline. The rate of growth is important, but let's says one's annual income doubled from $1,000/year to $2,000/year here in the US -- that would be a 100% rate of growth but the annual income would still be still way below the poverty line.

No, the big story is the actual per capita income. North Dakota is #2 in the nation in per capita income. That's a huge story. Wow, I could go on forever about what that means, but ....

... one thing folks forget: money circulates. And almost every time money moves from one person's hand to another person's hand there is a tax involved. When this is much more money in the economy, there is much more money moving from one person's hand to another person's hand, and state coffers will see that for calendar year 2013, but it will definitely be seen in 2014 with income tax receipts. North Dakota farmers, even if they don't own mineral rights, in the western half of the state are making so much money off the oil and gas industry they can afford to farm once again.

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A Note to the Granddaughters

Grammy is in California for a couple of weeks. I'm adapting to a new schedule, new interests, new sensibilities.

First on the list: the new Beatle CD's. I've purchased three in the past ten days -- Revolver, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band, and Abbey Road. In real terms, they are less expensive than when they first came out five decades ago.

Second, I'm reading the personal section of The Wall Street Journal on a more regular basis. May and I recently saw Tim's Vermeer. It turns out there is another art documentary now being released that should be just as good. From The WSJ:

'Finding Vivian Maier, " co-directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, is a documentary about art in the guise of a detective story. Its main character is a proud, elusive photographer, a self-described "spy" who left behind lots of clues but few answers to the riddle of her sad life.

Vivian Maier (1926-2009) was briefly a news story in 2011 when it was revealed that for more than two decades, while employed as a nanny in New York and Chicago, she had on her days off taken more than 100,000 photographs, a number of them remarkable. Her candid, sometimes wrenching, portraits of strangers in urban settings, as well as her experimental self-portraits—made in the early 1950s through the 1980s, in black-and-white and color, in square format and 35mm—were astonishing in their formal confidence. Her willingness to merge her own shadow or reflection into the frame indicates she kept up with the latest work of Harry Callahan and Lee Friedlander. Don't believe me?

The film, in limited release beginning Friday, offers testimonials from contemporary masters Joel Meyerowitz and Mary Ellen Mark.

I will also be riding the bike more often than usual. The weather is starting to turn a bit nicer. I also told Arianna I would like to start jogging with her.

Now, if only I could "cold-turkey" the blogging addiction. Smile. Just joking.