Where do residents of the region get their incomes from?
In this brief, we use the Bureau of Economic Analysis Personal Income data to describe personal income at the county level. Personal income refers to income that people get from wages, proprietors’ income, dividends, interest, rents, and government benefits. County level income measures allow us to, therefore, capture all the income accessible to residents irrespective of source.
What are the big takeaways about New Hanover county?
Total personal income in the county grew by 3.9% between 2021 and 2022 and by a cumulative 26.8% between 2019 and 2022. That puts it as the 12th fastest growing county in the state. Figure 1 shows that total income was 14.31 billion dollars with 55.2% of that coming from earnings, another 20.2% from personal transfers, and 24.4% from Dividends/interest.
Per capita personal income is $60,943 which is $2,843 or 4.8% above the statewide average over the last year.
Figure 1: New Hanover county’s personal income in 2022
In terms of growth, both Brunswick and New Hanover county have been outperforming the state. Brunswick county has experienced faster Personal Income growth than the state in every year since 2013 and New Hanover county has outperformed the state every year since 2018. It is important to note that the decline in personal income between 2021 and 2022 is driven by the fact that Stimulus payments were sent out in December 2021.
Figure 2: Personal income growth
What are the source of personal income and do they differ across counties in the region?
In Figure 3, we show that, at the state level, 63% of all personal income comes from earnings and the rest comes from mainly retirement at 18.23% and Dividends/interest at 18.03%. Similar to the state, New Hanover county’s most important source of income is earnings, albeit at a lower rate, at 55%. For Brunswick county, the picture looks quite different with less than half of all income coming from earnings and retirement income contributing almost 30%.
Figure 3: Share of personal income by source
How have the different components of personal income changed over time?
We turn our attention to the evolution of the three components of personal income. First in Figure 4, we present per-capita personal transfers. Two things are worth noting in that graph, the first is that transfers play a much more important role in Brunswick county than in New Hanover county and that the dependence is growing over time. The second is that the stimulus payments resulted in a significant boost in transfers in all communities.
Figure 4: Per-capita personal transfers
Next, in Figure 5, we turn to dividends/interest and find that they have been steadily growing at the state level, Brunswick, and New Hanover. We also can clearly see that Dividends play a much more important role in both New Hanover and Brunswick than at the state level.
Figure 5: Per-capita dividends
The third component we graph below in Figure 6 is the earnings per-capita which shows that average earnings at the state level are higher than those in New Hanover and Brunswick county. We can also see that New Hanover county’s earnings are closing the gap potentially indicating that higher wage jobs are being created in the area. We can also that Brunswick county’s earnings per-capita have increased substantially over the last four years.
Figure 6: Per-capita earnings
How does the growth in the region compare?
In Table 1, we present personal income growth between 2019 and 2022 and show that Brunswick county’s income grew by 35.23% and had the second fastest growth in the state during that span. Pender county’s growth was 30.41% and ranked 7th, while New Hanover county’s growth was 26.8% and ranked 12th. The three county region is therefore made of up of the second, seventh, and twelfth fastest growing counties in terms of personal income.
Fastest growing counties between 2019 and 2022 in terms of personal income
Which components of personal income are driving this growth?
In Table 2, we show the growth of the three main components of personal income for each of the fastest growing 20 counties. Specifically, we present the growth of earnings, personal transfers, and dividends/interest. In 10 out of the 20 counties, personal transfers grew at the fastest rate. In both Pender and New Hanover county, personal income grew the fastest while in Brunswick county earnings grew a little bit faster than the other two components.
Where does this leave us?
A broad look at personal income rather just wages is important to fully understand the resources available to residents. Over the last three years, the sources of income and their growth have changed considerably at the county level due to government stimulus, growth in wages due to shortages, as well as migration patterns. Given the changing macroeconomic economic environment and the potential decline in migration, the growth rate in personal income is likely to resemble that of the pre-pandemic era than the last three years.