Government aid drives strong growth in personal income – Dakota Free Press

A funny thing happened on the way to recession last year: Our personal income increased. Well, maybe not yours or your cousin Billy’s, but overall personal income has grown at higher rates than since the good old days under President Obama. And, as one might expect, this growth would not have taken place without the great governmental socialism:

Note that the last time capitalism collapsed (assuming you viewed normal exploitation of labor and the environment and the inability to provide health care and affordable housing as ‘functioning properly’), during the recession from December 2007 to June 2009, personal income declined by up to 5%. But this time, with capitalism not only unable to function properly because of a pandemic but also threatening to make the pandemic worse, we have responded to a recession with much more government assistance, keeping families afloat and preparing for the crisis. ground for a much faster economic recovery. As we release coronavirus relief funds in the first quarter of this year, enough Americans had enough money to order more takeout and stuff from Amazon to increase everyone’s regular income from the world. labor and other market / non-government sources.

But as you can see from the blue tips in total income towering over the skinny green scribble in the graph above, our revenue growth in the first quarter of 2021 was almost entirely government:

The share of personal income from earnings – which includes labor wages, additional pay such as employer-sponsored health benefits, and corporate profits – has also increased, although by far less than government assistance. total. Revenue increased $ 177 billion in the first quarter of 2021 from a year earlier, after adjusting for inflation, compared to a $ 2.8 trillion increase in income from all sources government assistance. Profits rose for the third quarter in a row and are above pre-pandemic levels after falling in the first few months of 2020. All but 10 states saw year-over-year gains. [Barb Rosewicz, Mike Maciag, and Joe Fleming, “States Began 2021 with Record Personal Income Growth,” Pew Charitable Trusts, updated 2021.09.02].

The heavy hand of the government made up the bulk of South Dakota’s income growth like everywhere else, but South Dakota also saw the second highest growth in labor income, dividends, interest and rents, helping us beat the national average of 14.4% and show the 13th highest total personal income growth among states at 16.8%:

In 2020, South Dakota’s personal income grew 5.82%, better than the national average of 4.86%, and the highest in South Dakota since 2011’s 7.13% growth.