Dayton Business Journal...
Ohio personal income growth slips in 2Q
by DBJ Staff
Thursday, September 22, 2011 

Personal income growth in Ohio slowed in the second quarter, the government reported Thursday, but the pace of its modest increase remained above the national average for states. 

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis said the state’s growth in personal income – total income received by all Ohioans from all sources – rose 1.2 percent from the first quarter to $436.87 billion. The average for state growth had slowed to feeble 1.1 percent for the quarter from 2.1 percent in the first quarter. 

The latest data and industry analysis are available here. 

The state’s gain from $431.55 billion of personal income in the first three months of the year put Ohio 24th in the nation for pace of growth. Ohio’s personal income total in the first quarter had risen 1.7 percent, the largest gain for the state in the previous four quarters, the bureau statistics say. 

Nebraska posted the fastest growth rate at 2.23 percent, followed by South Dakota, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming. But the bureau said contributions from farming and mining, which are big industries in those states, helped set them apart from other states. Farming made major contributions to income growth in Nebraska and South Dakota in the quarter, where the value of crop output was up 9 percent, bureau analysts noted. 

States with the lowest growth in the second quarter – Delaware, Georgia, Michigan, New York and Washington – all had substantial bonuses paid to workers in the first quarter in major industries, the bureau said. 

Locally, some improvement may be on the way. The Dayton-area unemployment rate dropped below the 10 percent mark in August for the first time in two months. 

The August jobless rate for the Dayton metropolitan statistical area was 9.4 percent, down from 10 percent in July.