By Adam Pagnucco. from Montgomery Perspective December 26th 2024
Part One summarized the premise of this series: an examination of key stats from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) comparing Montgomery County to its largest neighbors. Part Two looked at population. Part Three looked at gross domestic product (GDP). Part Four looked at per capita GDP. Part Five looked at personal income. Now let’s look at per capita personal income, which measures the average amount of money coming into each of our wallets.
In this series, I use the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria CPI-U to convert nominal personal income into 2022 dollars, thereby adjusting for the effects of inflation.
The chart below shows real per capita personal income growth (adjusted for inflation) for the large jurisdictions in the region in the most recent year measured.
As with personal income, 2022 was a bad year for per capita personal income because of inflation. For the region, nominal per capita personal income grew by 2.3% but the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria CPI-U grew by 6.6%, producing a 4.0% loss in real per capita personal income. The entire region suffered and MoCo’s loss was close to the region average.
Now let’s look at the five-year change.
MoCo was the only large jurisdiction in the region to lose real per capita personal income during this period. This is the same result as seen in total real personal income.
This chart shows the ten-year change.
Once again, we’re at the bottom with barely any change. On average, our residents have not seen a lot more money coming into their pockets over the last decade. That can’t be said of many of our competitors.
We are supposed to be a wealthy jurisdiction and we’re still a bit better off than most of the region. In 2022, BEA calculated MoCo’s per capita personal income at $93,395, which was better than the regional total of $83,010. But our edge is slipping. The chart below shows our per capita personal income as a percentage of the region’s. Aside from a spike in the early 2000s, our per capita personal income was slightly more than 120% of the region’s for thirty years. But starting in 2017, our relative personal income began diving. If it keeps up, we will go from a relatively wealthy DC-area jurisdiction to an average one in the next decade.
Next: we will review wage and salary employment.