Submitted by: agcomm,  Thu Dec 18 12:35:24 1997


                        December 18, 1997
 
North Dakota Total Personal Income Leapt in 1996
 
     A big increase in North Dakota's 1996 farm income caused a
spurt of growth in the state's total personal income, according
to a new "Economic Brief" from the State Data Center at North
Dakota State University.  Farm income rose from $121 million in
1995 to $763 million in 1996, an increase of 531 percent. 
     "The artificially high proportional increase was largely due
to the poor farm production in 1995," said Richard Rathge,
director of the Data Center. "Weather and disease problems took
their toll on crops in 1995, while 1996 was an above-average crop
year."  
     As a result of the substantial increase in farm earnings
between 1995 and 1996, total personal income in the state rose
10.9 percent to $13.2 billion, the highest growth rate in the
nation.  Other industries in North Dakota produced increases in
personal income of between 2.9 and 12.8 percent.
     Personal income grew 7.7 percent in Minnesota, 4.6 percent
in Montana, 9.5 percent in South Dakota, and in the United States
as a whole was up 5.6 percent. 
     "For half a century," said Rathge, "North Dakota's farm
income as a percentage of total personal income has been
generally declining.  In most of the years from 1950 to 1975, for
instance, farm personal income accounted for more than 22 percent
of the state's total personal income, ranging from a low of about
13 percent in 1961 to a high of 39 percent in 1973.  But since
1980 the largest percentage was 8.1 percent, and currently farm
income represents only 5.8 percent of total personal income in
North Dakota." 
     In 1996 in North Dakota the personal income from wage and
salary disbursements, along with other labor income, was up about
6 percent from what it had been in 1995.  Nonfarm proprietors'
income was up 4.4 percent.  
 
[EDITORS: FOR BREAKDOWN OF PERSONAL INCOME IN NORTH DAKOTA, AND
COMPARISONS WITH SURROUNDING STATES, SEE YELLOW PUBLICATION
FOLLOWING THIS STORY, "TOTAL PERSONAL INCOME BY MAJOR SOURCE AND
EARNINGS BY INDUSTRY, NORTH DAKOTA, 1990-1996."  THIS PUBLICATION
IS ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE STATE DATA CENTER, BOX 5636, NDSU,
FARGO, ND 58105.]
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NDSU Agriculture Communication
Source: Richard Rathge (701) 231-8621
Editor: Barry Brissman (701) 231-7866