Manufacturing states, which have lagged behind the national average in personal income growth during the 1980s, began to close the gap in the year that ended in June, the government said this week.
The Commerce Department said non-farm personal incomes continued to grow fastest in the high-tech industrial states of New England from the second quarter of 1987 to the second quarter of this year, as they have through most of the current economic expansion.From the end of the last recession in the third quarter of 1982 and continuing through the April-June period of last year, incomes in the coastal regions - New England, Far West, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic - have grown faster than in the regions in the middle - Great Lakes, Plains, Southwest and Rocky Mountain area.
However, in the last year, the mix has begun to change.
For the United States as a whole, the annual rate of non-farm personal income growth for the year ended in June was 7.7 percent, up from 7.1 percent in the earlier part of the economic expansion.
Here's how the various regions fared:
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New England: 9.5 percent, up from 8.7 percent.
Mid-Atlantic: 8.7 percent, up from 7.4 percent.
Far West: 7.8 percent, down from 8.2 percent.
Great Lakes: 7.7 percent, up from 6.2 percent.
Southeast: 7.5 percent, down from 7.9 percent.
Plains: 6.2 percent, up from 5.9 percent.
Southwest: 5.8 percent, up from 5.5 percent.
Rocky Mountain: 5.2 percent, up from 5.1.
percent.
The Commerce Department attributed gains in