Southern incomes stall

The U.S. Dept. of Commerce yesterday released 2005 personal income statistics, and not much has changed for Southern states.

Virgina was the only Southern representative among the top ten states with the highest per capita income. Meanwhile, seven of the ten states with the lowest per capita income were in the South: Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Significantly, again only Virginia was among states to experience a significant growth rate in personal income, while Mississippi's was low and Louisiana's was negative.

The report attributed Louisiana's performance to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But what about the rest of the South? What is keeping us from doing better?

An article by the Arkansas News Bureau cites some analysis by Arkansas economists:

"Arkansas has just been behind for so long that we need more than steady growth," Deck said. "We need extraordinary growth rates in order to just be average."

Ashvin Vibhakar, director of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Institute for Economic Advancement, said the slow growth in personal income is linked to the lack of educational progress.

"Until we do close the educational gap, we will continue to see this problem," the UALR economist said.