BCT Editorial – 5/7/06

This page was last updated on May 7, 2006.

Doing OK; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 7, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“USA Today reports personal income in Pennsylvania has grown by 3.6 percent since 2000, putting it in 26th place and above the national average of 2.2 percent.

“Among the traditional Rust Belt states, it ranked fairly high.”

[RWC] Translation: PA “ranked fairly high” among a group of losers. Hip, hip, hooray!

“The state did even better on the per-capita income ranking for 2005 - $34,897. While that was a little better than the national average ($34,586), it was good enough for 18th place.”

[RWC] “The state did even better …?” Tell me this. Do you know of any competitions in which either 18^th or 26^th place out of 50 competitors is considered “OK?”

This is a continuing trait of Times editorials. If you recall, Times editorials claim a middle-of –the-pack ranking for tax burden is not a bad thing.

Note the editorial didn’t attempt to explain why the per-capita ranking was higher than the overall ranking. Here’s my educated guess. Assuming news reports are correct, PA has been losing its younger population for years. I believe what the editorial wants us to believe is good news is simply a result of the aging of Pennsylvania. Older people tend to have greater income and fewer family members living at home. More dollars spread among fewer family members results in higher per-capita income. This is one of those cases in which a “good” statistic is misleading when not considered in context.

“There’s a downside, though.

“The paper noted the western part of the state did poorly over the last five years.”

[RWC] Note the editorial didn’t tell us why, and for good reason. Here’s the PA blurb from the article as it appeared in the Statesman Journal (Salem, OR): “How the economy is doing: Western Pennsylvania, where steel and heavy manufacturing once ruled, did poorly over the past five years. The eastern part of the state, where education and health services play a bigger role, did better.”¹

Why would the editorial omit this information? Here’s my opinion. Education and “health services” are heavily funded by taxpayer dollars. As a result, the main reason the eastern part of the state “did better” was the result of government spending. If government spending instead of private economic activity is holding up personal income, you have serious problems. It’s called socialism and it collapses every time. Given the editorial wanted to cheer, “We’re #26! We’re #26!”, it couldn’t afford to explain why the #26 ranking was really worse than #26.

“Oh, woe is us?

“It depends on where you are.”

1. Personal income is up in states with oil, coal and natural gas; Dennis Cauchon; Gannett News Service; May 4, 2006.