Data for income in the nation’s metropolitan statistical areas is now available for 2012, so I’ve updated some visualizations with the recent data. This visualization presents three statistics: Population, personal income, and per capita personal income. For each measurement, I present the relative change from the previous year, but also the compound rate of growth. The latter lets us see the effect of long term trends compounded over time, rather than what may have happened in any single year.
(There are some issues related to per capita measures that require caution; see Wichita and peer GDP growth for an explanation.)
The charts, in their initial presentation, show the Wichita metropolitan area and our Visioneering peer areas. (You may add or remove other areas as you wish.) The unfortunate conclusion that we must draw from this data is that Wichita has not done well. In fact, Wichita is in last place among our Visioneering-identified peer areas.
Others have noticed this poor performance; see Wichita in the bottom quintile in national economic index from the Wichita Business Journal for a recent example.
Click here to open the visualization in a new window.
(Data is from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis along with author’s own calculations. Visualization created using Tableau Public.)
