Nebraska bucks income trend

It wasn’t so long ago that places like California, Arizona and Florida were seen as the nation’s economic meccas, beckoning people from the Midlands as the places to go to live and work.

But it seems in this recession, those tables have turned.

The latest income figures from the U.S. Census Bureau released Monday indicate that Nebraska posted the seventh-highest growth in real income in the nation last year. With median household income up 1.6 percent in 2008 even when adjusted for inflation, Nebraska was one of several Plains states among the nation’s income growth leaders.

Those gains came as real median household income fell 1.3 percent nationally and in 27 states overall. Florida, with a nation-leading income decline of 3.8 percent, Arizona (1.6 percent decline) and California (2 percent decline) all ranked in the bottom 10 in income growth.

Iowa ranked in the middle among the states, its real median household income falling by three-tenths of 1 percent.

“The numbers suggest that when the economic downturn was hitting elsewhere, Nebraska was holding up pretty well,” said David Drozd, who analyzes census data for the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Center for Public Affairs Research. “California and Florida were down pretty hard.”

Of course, during 2009 Nebraska, too, has been feeling the recession’s effects, though most economists still think it’s faring better than most states.

Scott Strain, senior director of research for the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, said the census figures reflect an economic recession that came in two waves, led by a downturn in housing and a spike in energy prices.

“We pretty much got past that first wave,” Strain said, citing job growth in Omaha for 2008 and a relatively strong ag economy. “It was the financial market meltdown that finally started to impact us.”

Despite Nebraska’s relatively strong income report, other census figures indicate that the recession affected people in other ways.

--Nebraskans are staying in the work force. The state continued to rank tops in the nation with the highest percentage of people age 16 to 64 in the work force, whether they were employed or looking for work, according to the UNO research center. Iowa ranks fourth nationally.

--More people over age 65 are staying in the work force — 20.4 percent of older Nebraskans, up from 19.7 percent in recent years. Overall, about 2,900 more Nebraskans over age 65 were working or considered themselves unemployed. In Iowa, that rate rose from 16.8 percent to 17.5 percent. In all, 4,400 more older Iowans are in the work force.

--Fewer parents are staying at home with young kids. In Nebraska, 75 percent of children under age 6 have all their parents in the work force, the research center said. In 2005, the figure was just under 67 percent.

--Nebraska’s foreign-born population dipped from recent years by some 1,500 people, to 97,815, largely because of a drop in people from Asia. Iowa’s number dropped by 350 people. Nationally, the foreign-born total dropped to 38 million people due to a decline in workers from Mexico searching for jobs.

--In the Omaha metro area, more commuters began carpooling or taking the bus when gas prices spiked to $4 a gallon. The percentage of people who drove to work alone may have declined modestly, from 82.8 percent in recent years to 82.1 percent in 2008. But that still meant a behavioral shift for thousands of commuters. Nationally, the percentage of people who drove alone to work dropped to its lowest point in a decade.

This census release did not include new statistics on poverty. That information is scheduled to be released next week.

Earlier population reports had indicated that the recession was influencing where people lived.

Nebraska has seen more residents move in from the harder-hit states of Michigan and Pennsylvania and seen fewer retirees head to Arizona and Florida. In the metro area, fringe suburban cities such as Blair, Fremont and Wahoo saw a dip in their population for 2008, a possible side effect of high gas prices.

“The recession has affected everybody in one way or another as families use lots of different strategies to cope with a new economic reality,” said Mark Mather, associate vice president of the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau.

Charles Dalluge of Omaha, executive vice president of the Leo A Daly architecture and engineering firm, said the income figures confirm his feeling that Omaha and Nebraska are stable places to live.

An Omaha native, Dalluge has lived around the world while working for Leo A Daly, most recently in its Washington, D.C., office. Although he maintained family and professional connections all along, he and his family moved back to Omaha three years ago.

Dalluge said the local housing market hasn’t seen home values fall off a cliff, as in other big cities. Unemployment is low, along with the cost of living and his commuting time, he said. And the construction industry is active.

“It’s just a very stable environment here in Omaha, certainly,” Dalluge said. “It’s wonderful.”

Nebraska’s growth in real median household income in 2008 was aided by growth both inside and outside its metropolitan areas, Drozd said. The Lincoln and Omaha metro areas combined for growth of 1 percent, while solid farm income helped income grow 4 percent in other parts of the state.

Nebraska’s 2008 median household income of $49,693 ranked 29th, or up four spots from the previous year. It was up almost $800 from the inflation-adjusted figure for 2007, and that ranked Nebraska seventh in real income growth.

When accounting for Nebraska’s below-average cost of living, income in Nebraska for 2008 ranked in the top 10 nationally, Drozd said.

Among other statistics released Monday:

--Across Nebraska, 12.7 percent of people under age 65 lack health insurance. That’s about 193,000 people, not counting those in the military, in nursing homes or in prisons. In Omaha, 15.6 percent of those under 65 are uninsured.

--In the Omaha metro area, the young, creative class — people age 25 to 34 with a college degree — has grown this decade. Since 2000, that group of young professionals has grown by about 8,300 people, or just under 24 percent.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

Contact the writer:

444-1130, henry.cordes@owh.com

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