Real state personal income grew 2.4 percent in 2019 after increasing 3.1 percent in 2018, according to estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Montana’s Real Personal Income, 2018-2019, increased 1.8 percent.

Real state personal income is a state’s current-dollar personal income adjusted by the state’s regional price parity and the national personal consumption expenditures price index. The percent change in real estate personal income ranged from 4.1 percent in Maine to 0.7 percent in Hawaii, Wyoming, and Rhode Island. Across metropolitan areas, the percent change ranged from 7.6 percent in Hanford-Corcoran, CA, to –3.2 percent in Panama City, FL, and Wheeling, WV-OH.

In North Dakota it increased 3.3 percent, South Dakota, 2.1 percent and Idaho, 3.6 percent.

Real Personal Income in 2019

Large metropolitan areas—those with populations greater than two million—with the fastest growth in real personal income were Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, TX (5.3 percent), Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO (4.0 percent), and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA (3.7 percent).

Large metropolitan areas with the slowest growth in real personal income were Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL (1.4 percent), Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI (1.4 percent), and Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI (1.4 percent).

Regional price parities (RPPs) measure the differences in price levels across states and metropolitan areas for a given year and are expressed as a percentage of the overall national price level. RPP covers all consumption goods and services, including housing rents.

States with the highest RPPs were Hawaii (119.3), California (116.4), and New York (116.3) (table 3).

States with the lowest RPPs were Mississippi (84.4), Arkansas (84.7), and Alabama (85.8).

Across states, California had the highest RPP for housing rents (153.6), and Mississippi had the lowest (60.0).

Large metropolitan areas with the highest RPPs were San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA (134.5), New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA (125.7), and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA (118.8).