Short note: The Daily Yonder today (“2008 Incomes Surged in Farm Counties“) picks up on the BEA personal income figures I wrote about 2 weeks ago (“PCI UP IN SW MN“) when they were released.
Of the fastest growing 400 counties, 364 were rural.
As you can see in the map above, most of the counties with the fastest growing incomes (those in green) were in the Midwest and Great Plains, communities that benefited from extraordinary increases in farm revenue in ’08….
Losing counties appear to be concentrated in oil and gas producing regions, particularly in the Texas Panhandle.
That’s their graphic up above showing non-metro counties.
I focused on my immediate region of Southwest Minnesota, but I’m fascinated to see both the largest gains and largest losses right next door in the Dakotas. We don’t often see Langdon, Crosby or Finley, North Dakota in national headlines for good news or bad. I expect the general conclusion hold generally—the growth counties had really good farm income in ’08, while Amidon, Beach and Medora out on the Bakken Formation oil patch leveled off.
It was a good year, but ’09, well, looks like it’s going to turn out a re-building year.
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STrib
The Economist