How would you interpret this economic data?

I ran across a site with some stats on my home county, in s/w missouri. You will find these at this link..

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genIn...locIndex=20484

I find a couple things a bit confusing. You will notice the chart which shows the median household income of our county was found by the 2000 census to be $27,010 as opposed to the national median household income of $41,884 at that time.

Right below that it says this...

Quote:

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In 2002, the per capita personal income in McDonald County was $20,107. This was an increase of 25.4% from 1997. The 2002 figure was 65% of the national per capita income, which was $30,906.

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It is saying that 2002 is an increase over 1997.. but when I compare that to the 2000 census, it appears to me that we lost $7,000 in income from 2000 to 2002. It also seems to be saying that natioanlly the median dropped from 2000 to 2002 from $41,884 to $30,906.

Is there something I am not getting? Is this flawwed data?

Anyway, one of the things which interests me about this is I wonder how much that loss in average income is due to the high numbers of immigrants, a LARGE number of whom ARE illegals, who are now working in the fields which are the counties 3 main fields of employment.. Tysons, Wal-Mart, and in General Contracting. In any case.. whatever the trends are in income, you can see that this is a very poor county with these median income levels. We can barely afford to survive, and yet we have to pay more and more for increased police (our sheriffs booking report has increased by 8 times in the last 6 years, mostly with names like Gonzalez and Hernandez), as well as having to expand our schools etc.

Don Quixote....the information is confusing because they are giving you two different types of statistics. The $27,000 figure (local in 2000) and the $41,000 figure (national in 2000) are HOUSEHOLD INCOMES, whereas the other lowers figures they used in 2002 were "per capita". It is two different figures. Household income includes income for the household which includes both working adults so it is always higher than "per capita" which is the gross wages of an area divided by the total population.

See if you can find the "per capita" for all the years from 1997 to 2002 and the household income for the same years and the number of households. Also find the population they are using for all the years. If you can find that data, post it, and I'll see if I can help you determine if deflated wages and salaries have occurred. It's hard to see it, because all the rich household income which we know has grown considerably offsets the loss of lower income households taking the hit when you "average' all the incomes and report them as "median" figures.

It's one of the reasons what has happened has slipped up on everyone.

The real loss has occurred in the past 4 years and you'll need the 2004 US Census Data which should be out shortly. That would show 4 years of what happened under the first term of this administration to create the now alarming "income gap".

8)

DQ--Call the Missouri Department of Economic Development at 573-751-4962...ask for Tony Grandison...tell him "Judy" sent you...and you need some help understanding where your County stands. He is a great guy and may be able to connect you with some specialists to evaluate where McDonald County is and what it needs to do. Until you stop the illegal immigration....there is not much that can be done...let him know that.

I can assure you that none of the professional staff in that organization is very exicted about working their butts off to locate an industry and have the jobs filled with foreign nationals.

8)

Thanx Judy. I knew I was not reading them right, was just not sure what I was misunderstanding. I understand the discrepancy now.

I guess ya can see by our income figures here why it is I have very little patience for illegals driving our wage scales down.

DQ...I do Dear. Missouri is my home state. Born, raised, educated and worked there until I left for a job in Delaware. I know the economic situation is not good and I know from friends the influx of illegals is driving everyone crazy...especially in small communities where they stand out like sore thumbs.

Have you called Kit Bond? If you haven't, you should. He is an undecided on CAFTA--he might trade a $2 Billion locks and damn project for his vote.

Call his office and talk to them first thing on Monday. Call both the office in your area...should be one around Springfield and call the Jeff City Office and his office in DC. Find his website where they will have all of his numbers.

Look under either Kit Bond or Christopher S. Bond.

He'll listen. He has always been for the little guy...I pray he's not changed.

He is very influential Don so if you could get him to vote NO on CAFTA, many will follow his lead.

:)