The portfolios of Sandieguinos grew fat in 2020 thanks to stimulus money, stock market gains and a strong economy despite the pandemic.
San Diego County residents saw their real personal income increase 6.4 percent last year. That’s a 1.1 percent increase in 2019, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Economic Analysis.
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The local increase exceeded the national increase of 5.3 percent. It was the largest annual increase in personal income in the San Diego metropolitan area since the office began tracking data at the county level in 2008.
The data comes with a few caveats: In addition to being a year behind, it doesn’t separate the different income classes. So when most might have seen an increase, they don’t take into account some low-wage workers who were more likely to lose income in 2020 because their jobs couldn’t be done remotely during the COVID-19 stoppages. .
Ray Major, an economist with the San Diego Association of Governments, said that income increased because high-wage workers were not hurt by the pandemic because they were able to work from home, received stimulus checks and saw their wages rise. Lower-income San Diegans, he said, also saw their incomes rise with the stimulus and, if necessary, with improved unemployment benefits.
“I don’t think it’s entirely surprising given the amount of money that was pumped into the economy from stimulus dollars,” he said. “There were a lot of people who kept working and who received some kind of incentive or benefits.”
Major said it was not universal for everyone to see their income improve throughout San Diego, especially small business owners who may have lost their business – even with loans and programs designed to help.
“Business is no better now than before, especially if it is a restaurant,” he said. “It is not the same as before.”
Real personal income is a way to see how much money Americans make in a year. Adjusted for inflation, the figure includes salaries, interest, stock dividends, and government benefits.
Among large metropolitan areas, San Diego posted one of the largest increases in personal income, at 6.4 percent. In California, revenue in San Francisco increased 7.1 percent, Los Angeles 4.1 percent and San Jose 6 percent. Other areas with substantial increases were Detroit (6.7 percent), El Paso (5.8 percent), Las Vegas (6.8 percent) and Philadelphia (6.4 percent).
The largest change in personal income in the country occurred in El Centro, with income growth of 20 percent. Midland, Texas, the center of the nation’s oil and gas production, saw its personal income drop 10.6 percent. Gasoline demand fell sharply in 2020, but Midland likely benefited from the price hike in 2021.
It can be a bit tricky to guess why certain metropolitan areas saw large increases. For example, San Francisco has a lot of homeworkers and high wages, so incomes were likely to go up. However, other low-income areas, such as Detroit, may have seen increases thanks to stimulus payments and strong unemployment benefits.
The national poverty rate, tracked by the United States Census, was the lowest it had had in 2020 since registrations began in 2009. Including government assistance, it was 9.1 percent last year, down from 11.8 percent in 2019.
Alan Gin, an economist at the University of San Diego, said a variety of factors likely drove incomes in areas with high poverty rates: economic stimulus programs, wages that started much lower and were met by national increases and overall costs of goods that remained low for much of 2020.
“All of the stimulus payments going to relatively low-income areas make the percentage increase seem much higher,” he said.
The data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis includes something called regional price parity, which analyzes the price of goods and services, including rents. Of the 384 metropolitan areas, San Diego ranked fourth in terms of prices, behind Honolulu, New York and San Francisco.
San Diego County saw its prices rise about 1.3 percent in 2020, with prices for goods and utilities rising slightly. Housing and other services, such as food and medicine, fell from the previous year. Though things cost more in San Diego, it didn’t see prices rise as much as other areas, like Denver, which was up 3.3 percent.
All areas are likely to see big price swings when data for 2021 is released due to inflation. San Diego County’s inflation rate was 6.5 percent in September, said the Consumer Price Index from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This figure is higher than the national average of 5.4 percent.
The per capita, or average, personal income obtained by a Sandieguino in 2020 was $ 66,266 (ranked 32nd out of 384), compared to $ 60,845 the previous year. The highest was Midland, Texas, at $ 124,667. They were followed by San Jose ($ 121,619), Bridgeport, Connecticut ($ 120,244) and San Francisco ($ 111,050). The lowest figure was recorded in McAllen, Texas, with a median income of $ 31,153.
Broken down by state, Idaho had the highest real personal income growth, at 9.8 percent. California stood at 7 percent. All states saw an increase, but the smallest was Alaska, at 1.6 percent.
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