State’s $46K average income is 5th in nation

Posted by Jeff Quinton on March 27, 2008

Marylanders saw a bigger average increase in personal income last year than in 2006, according to new government estimates.

Personal income in the state was about $46,000 per person last year, up 2.2 percent from a year earlier, adjusting for the sapping effects of inflation. That measure - a stand-in of sorts for wealth, including not only wages but also such sources of income as interest, dividends and employer contributions to health care and retirement - rose 1.8 percent in 2006.

The estimates, which are preliminary, were released yesterday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Maryland kept its fifth-in-the-nation rank for personal income, behind Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York. First-ranked Connecticut had a per capita figure of just over $54,000.