There has been somewhat a debate on the TulsaNow forum, as well as my workplace, about jobs in Oklahoma that do not pay well, and the scarcity of jobs that do. Well, stats don't lie, and the numbers collected paint a real picture of what happens in Oklahoma's economy, especially when you break it down by county and even by locality. Over the years, and even before the oil boom of the early 1980s, Oklahoma's national ranking followed the roller coaster economy we experienced.

During the 1970s, Oklahoma usually ranked in the mid-30s among fifty states for per capita income. In 1982, Oklahoma ranked 17th among fifty states ($11,370). That ranking fell to a low 46 in 1995 ($18,152). However, today, Oklahoma ranks 39th, at $26,656 for 2003. Even better, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Washington, D.C. think tank for the national economy, Oklahoma had the 9th fastest growing personal income in the nation for the second quarter of 2004.

When you take a closer look at Oklahoma's 77 counties, the broken-down version of our economic picture tells us more than the state and metro average. We can assume that the whole state is full of minimum wage jobs, but we could be wrong.

Consistently, over the last 15 years, southeastern Oklahoma has lagged behing the rest of the state. Both OKC and Tulsa, as well as northwestern Oklahoma, remained on par with the national average. Lawton and southwestern Oklahoma also lagged behind Oklahoma, but not as bad as southeastern Oklahoma where the average county makes 60 percent of the national average. What's worse is that this part of the state is more populated than other rural parts of Oklahoma, so the figures skew the state average.

Per capita personal income figures are more important that median income figures and average household income figures because it measures the overall wealth of a nation, state and local region. Once we report our incomes to the IRS during tax season, the IRS then submits those number to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, who then totals the figures and divides the total by the total population for the given year. Businesses often use per capita income figures for locating businesses and retail outlets, as well as restaurants, to a certain area.

We can't continue to blame the entire state for isolated problems. Sure, we have a lot of low-paying jobs in our state, but are they next door in our city, or someplace else that we only visit or pass through?

Thanks for the great information okcpulse! I agree with this...there are some god high paying jobs in our city...problem is some of them require some interesting skills at times! Manufacturing jobs are sure hard to come by! Anyways, this is good news for our city.

I find the "9th fastest growing" stat to be a little misleading. I don't necessarily think it's because of anything good we're doing. It's more likely it is because we are so far behind everyone else.

Pulse, do you have cost of living numbers? I know we've really caught up to a lot of other metropolitan areas when it comes to those figures. Especially since the housing boom post-May '99.

Personal income figures and per capita personal income figures do not tend to be misleading. They are pretty cut and dry. I've been following Oklahoma's total personal income growth and per capita income growth over the last ten years. Typically, our growth usually ranked in the 30s or 40s. We've moved ahead of 7 states over the last 5 years in per capita income, with total personal income growth usually ranking in the 20s.

For instance, in 2002, Oklahoma's PCPI was $25,536 (rank 40). Multiply that by the 2002 estimated population (U.S. Census Bureau) which was 3,493,710, and Oklahoma's total personal income was over $89.2 billion dollars. In 2003, our PCPI was $26,656. Multiply that by the 2003 estimate of 3,511,532, and our total personal income was over $93.6 billion. In the second quarter of 2004, our total personal income was estimated at $97.2 billion. Nat bad for new money. Keep in mind that total personal income includes nonfarm income, farm income, proprietary and royalty income, as well as rental income. Nonfarm income was our fastest growing sector.

The last time I checked, Oklahoma City's overall cost of living was 92 percent of the national average. Utilities was close to 100 percent, groceries and necessities was close to 96 percent, and housing was around 85 percent. I pasted a link for you to view the xls page on the BEA website where I got the total personal income estimates for the second quarter of 2004.

http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrelarchive/2004/spi0904.xls