New Jersey’s Income Growth Lags Far Behind Nation [AUDIO]

New evidence from the Fed demonstrates just how badly New Jersey's economy has been dragging along.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports 2nd quarter income grew in New Jersey at a snail's pace. The state was 45th in the nation for this.

Incomes in New Jersey rose 0.8% in the second quarter, lagging the national average of 1.0% largely because the state's earnings growth rate (+0.25% quarter-on-quarter) was less than one-third of the national average. Relative to the fourth quarter of 2007, the period immediately before the 2008-2009 contraction, incomes in New Jersey increased 7.5%; nationally, the gain was 10.2% (one-third faster).

New Jersey economic analyst Patrick O'Keefe of J.H. Cohn in Roseland says income growth was the sixth-slowest among all of the states.

O'Keefe says income growth is a lynchpin for all other types of economic growth. Simply stated, when people earn more, they buy more, and that helps the economy. On the other side of that coin, he says a slow and uneven rate of growth in our earnings means that our economy generally will perform less robustly.

Personal income in New Jersey in the second quarter was $472 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate. Nationally, the total was $13,370 billion.

He says it just underscores the fact New Jersey's economy has been an under-performer now for almost ten years.