Wyoming Personal Income Up in Second Quarter Of 2017
A report this week from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows personal income in Wyoming grew by 0.6 percent in the second quarter of 2017 compared to the first quarter of the year.
Senior State Economist Jim Robinson says the report is good news for the state economy because that now makes two consecutive quarters in which the state income has grown, following steady declines in 2016.
While the second quarter increase in personal income in Wyoming was much smaller than the 1.8 percent jump the state saw in the first quarter of the year, he says it still shows the economy is trending in the right direction.
He says more good news is to be found in the fact that the critical mining sector of the state economy, which includes oil and natural gas, was up by 3.7 percent, the largest increase of any sector of the Wyoming economy. Income in the transportation sector also was up, showing a 1.4 percent jump.
But on the negative side, farm earnings fell by a whopping 55.9 percent. Robinson says that decline is part of a national slump affecting much of the agriculture industry, with states like Nebraska and Iowa hit especially hard.