Personal income, wages increase

Personal income in Kootenai County rose to $4.6 billion in 2011, representing a 5.3 percent increase from 2010, according to federal statistics released Monday.

"Much of the increase was due to earnings per industry," said Alivia Metts, regional economist.

Metts said that in Kootenai County, the business profits boost was seen in state and local government, retail, health care and manufacturing.

Personal income includes wages, interest earnings and transfer payments such as Social Security and unemployment.

Statewide, personal income was up 5.1 percent in 2011, a tenth of a percentage point below the national increase.

Increases were seen in personal income in all 44 of Idaho's counties, marking just the sixth time in the last 40 years that every county recorded an uptick in personal income.

Estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis showed total personal income increases ranging from a low of 1.1 percent in Gem County, where total wages fell 3.4 percent but business profits jumped 11.1 percent, to a high of 22.3 percent in Clark County, where total wages also fell 3.4 percent while business profits jumped 78.9 percent.

The average annual wage in Kootenai County rose 1.9 percent to $33,728 in 2011. Statewide the wage increase was the same.

The average annual wage grew slightly faster in rural Idaho last year, up 2 percent compared to 1.8 percent in the urban areas. The largest increase was 10 percent in Camas County. Six rural counties saw the average wage decline with the largest loss in Owyhee County at 1.4 percent.

A change in total wages can be the result of a change in the number of jobs while a change in the average wage is a change in compensation per job.